


Unexpected Miracles

by starbuckedlovers



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: AU, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Slow Burn, Stucky - Freeform, librarian Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-18 04:45:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8149537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbuckedlovers/pseuds/starbuckedlovers
Summary: AU When Steve agreed to start a Gay-Straight Alliance for teens at his library, he never expected to fall head over heels for the staff person that they send him from the Lincoln Gay and Lesbian Center. Slow-burn romance featuring librarian-and-struggling-artist Steve Rogers, and trying-to-navigate-life-young-father Bucky Barnes. Some elements of hurt/comfort, this fic deals heavily with grief and the process of moving on after a loss. Ensemble cast in later chapters, featuring Sharon Carter, Sam Wilson, Peggy, Wanda, and more.





	1. Silence in the Library

**Author's Note:**

> Because there just aren't enough fics about librarian Steve.

Sometimes Mondays were just a little too much to handle, Steve thought to himself. The white woman in the yellow hat and fitted skirt suit had called him over yet again for help. And by "called him over" he meant that she raised a hand and started snapping repeatedly, as if she was calling a dog and not a civil servant with an advanced degree. He prayed to no deity in particular for patience and sucked in a breath. 

"Something I can help you with?" he asked as he came up to her at the computer. 

"Yes," she said, as if he had taken way too long coming over to help her even thought this was the third time in 15 minutes that she had asked him for help. She had long, curling blonde hair that clashed horribly with her canary yellow suit, although he supposed most fashion decisions were fairly subjective. 

"What do you think of this font?" 

Steve bit back an internal groan. All of the woman's questions were like that: Do you think these words look better on this side of the page or the other side? How is this font? Which do you think Jesus would prefer? 

That last was a literal question she had asked him – she was a minister of some kind at the largest church in their relatively small city. And while in general he had no problems with either Jesus or women pastors, he really didn't have very many opinions on font types and sizes and couldn't see how that could possibly impact the power of her sermons. 

"I'm not sure," he said. "I think it's all a personal decision." 

The woman frowned at him, her bright red lips twisting unpleasantly and her nose and eyes crinkling up. "I just get the feeling that the Lord is telling me this one isn't right." 

"Well you could change it back to the one you were using before." 

The woman looked up at him again, "Do you have any fonts you like to use?" A pause that she used for dramatic effect to toss her hair back, exposing a semi see-through blouse and cleavage. "It's just nice to get a man's opinion sometimes." 

Oh dear god, was she flirting with him? 

"I think Times New Roman suffices most of the time," he replied, backing away a bit. He spotted a family with two young children standing at the reference desk. "It looks like they need help over there. I'll uhm.. I'll be back." 

\---- 

This was definitely not the first time that Steve had been hit on at his workplace. As a male "children's librarian" at a library in Nebraska, he was fairly used to women of all stripes seeming to find him irresistible. He wasn't sure why women were so drawn to men in traditionally female professions, but thus far the stereotype seemed to hold true. 

The younger mothers were quicker to sing praises about him to his boss rather than his female coworkers – who were pretty much 90% of the library's workforce. They flocked to his story times and clustered around him, flirting and twisting their hair like they were 13 years old again. It would probably be a lot more flattering if he was into women. As it was, he was pretty used to being the only gay man for miles around. Bellevue wasn't exactly crawling with gay men (or women for that matter), and there was no "scene" to be found around him anywhere. 

The city was mostly run down, with its glory days long past it. Most people worked blue collar jobs in steel mills or construction and the most excitement that they experienced were the parties people threw to watch the Huskers on TV. Growing up, he had always promised to himself that he would escape and get away from all of this. And he had, at least for awhile. He attended college at NYU, focusing on classical art and figure drawing. 

But it had been a harsh and brutal environment, more about who you knew than how talented you were. And totally lacking the tight knit community he had taken for granted growing up. At the end of his senior year, crushed by more student loans than he knew how to handle, and with his mother's failing health becoming more and more of a serious issue, he had made the decision to come home "for a few months." Just until he got things settled. Just until Sarah turned a corner. Just until he made enough paintings that he could sell some on the internet and make a name for himself and "return" to the art scene. 

"Just until" had turned into five years at this point. Sarah had passed away two years ago, peacefully slipping away in the night. Steve still lived in the house she had occupied for more than twenty years, rambling around in its voluminous insides like a man lost at sea. 

His mother had always wanted a house full of children – until her husband had died in military action overseas and she was left with just the house and Steve. They had kept the house because it was already paid for and honestly more of a nuisance than most people wanted to put up with. The truth of it was that it was the proverbial money pit, and required more repairs than Steve could ever truly afford. 

He had so many pails catching water from the leaks in the roof that it was ridiculous. And he had never quite gotten back to his art. He would paint now and then, but canvas and oils were expensive. And there was always the trouble of what to paint. What was worthy of his time? What would sell? Should he care about what would be popular or just paint what he wanted? 

And he was always so, so exhausted from work that extra time on leisure activities was incredibly difficult if not impossible. 

So he stayed stuck where he was. He loved helping people – he knew the customers really needed their help, whether that was inspiring them with new books or helping them contact social services. And it was enough for now, just to feel like he was helping and making a difference in the lives of other people. He only wished that someone would come along who could make that kind of difference in his life. 

\--- 

"I want you to start a gay straight alliance for the teens." 

Director Maria Hill wore her dark hair up in a no-nonsense bun. She also sported thick black Ray Bans that Steve was pretty sure weren't medically necessary. 

"Huh?" Was his super suave response. 

He wasn't sure what he had expected when she had called him into her office, but this wasn't it. He thought maybe he was going to be reprimanded for being rude to some customer who may or may not have deserved it. But this - 

"I'm sorry?" He asked, wincing at how stupid he sounded. 

Her steel gray-blue eyes bored into his. "I understand that some youth in our community are struggling with their sexual orientations and gender identity. I think it would be wise of us to support them. Especially given the suicide rate in the LGBT community." 

Steve's mouth was hanging open a bit and he made a conscious effort to close it and pause before he responded. "But why me?" He asked.  
He couldn't help but feel singled out. Would she have dared to ask any of the other 99% of the heterosexual staff to do this? 

"Because I think you could be very helpful to them. You're a successful - " Steve scoffed at that, but she waved a hand as if dismissing his concerns. "A very successful man living in a community that has not always been that friendly to you." 

She paused. 

"And you will have support. There's a gay and lesbian center in Lincoln that is sending someone who will be the primary contact and advisor. All you have to do is promote the program on our end, open the door, and sit in on the sessions so that we can be covered in case some angry parent comes up here and says something happened that didn't." 

"So all I have to do is be there?" Steve asked, just because he wanted to clarify. 

"Precisely," Director Hill said. "I'll give you a few days to decide or I'll ask another staff member. But I really think it should be you." 

\--- 

It took Steve a few days to make a decision. He felt like he really didn't know if any teens would come to this type of program. Most of their teens just seemed to want to hang out and play video games like Smash Brothers. They liked being left alone unless they needed book recommendations. And a lot of them made very unfortunate homophobic jokes that occasionally set his teeth on edge. 

So reaching out to them would be a struggle to be sure. But if the person from the Lincoln gay and lesbian center was going to take the brunt of the discussion part of it, and if they could discontinue the program if there was no attendance (as Director Hill had promised) he didn't see any reason to say no. 

It did make his stomach lurch a bit. While he was out in an unofficial capacity, he didn’t exactly come out and advertise his orientation. He mostly floated under the radar and let other people draw their own conclusions. Because honestly it was none of their business anyway. But running a club like this in the type of community he lived in was tantamount to declaring to one and all that he really was a gay man. 

He spent a few long nights thinking it over, pacing around his house and cleaning, because that was largely what he did when he was stressed. He was dusting off some picture frames when he came across a picture of him and his mother from when he was a teenager. He had been small then, almost sickly looking, before he had sprouted up during college. His mother had joked that it must have been all that "clean New York air" that helped him grow into the robust man he now was. 

The picture had been taken when he was sixteen, during the summer that he had come out to his mother. In the picture they were hugging and laughing. They both looked so carefree, and Steve suddenly felt like he was choking on his own loneliness. He remembered what it had been like to pretend to be straight and how freeing it was that she had accepted him. But what if it had been different? What if she had yelled at him? Kicked him out even? 

So ultimately he said yes because he remembered what it was like to be young and struggling in this town, feeling utterly alone and desperate to know that better times were around the corner. 

\--- 

So he printed out fliers, hung them up around the teen area, ignored the sniggers from teens and snide remarks from older members of the community. 

The woman in the yellow hat came up to him and said she would pray to Jesus for his soul. She even put her hand on his shoulder, and he was too shocked to remove it. 

The day of the first meeting finally arrived, and Steve's stomach was in knots. He had purchased some pizzas for the teens who participated in the program. The man who was running the program had also said to purchase notebooks and writing utensils, so Steve had those ready to go as well.

He laid everything out in their relatively small meeting room. And then he went and made coffee because when he was nervous that's what he did. He didn't look up when the staff room door bumped open and closed, thinking it was one of his other coworkers and being too nervous to talk. 

"So - " an unknown male voice said behind him. "Your coworker Sharon said this is where I could find you. Hope I'm not too early." 

He turned around and instantly felt himself start blushing. This had to be easily the most gorgeous man he had ever seen. He had ear length dark brown hair, beautiful blue eyes, and just the right hint of stubble. 

The man held out a hand. "Bucky Barnes. Straight outta' Lincoln." The man laughed at his own stupid joke, and the way his eyes crinkled at the edges when he smiled tugged at Steve's heart. 

Steve stared at him, swallowed. He shook the man's hand, trying to still the insane heart palpitations he was having. "Nice to meet you," he managed to get out. 

"Say do you have any more of that coffee?" The man – Bucky – asked him, grinning that devilish grin of his. "That smell is heavenly." 

TBC

Steve was so totally screwed.


	2. If At First You Don't Succeed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first meeting of the Gay Straight Alliance is sort of a debacle. At least Bucky looks hots though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I started doing some research, and it might have made more sense for Bucky to be from the Council Bluffs Community Alliance (https://councilbluffscommunityalliance.wordpress.com/). But I'm going to stick with OutLinc for now (http://outlinc.org/youth/). If anyone is from this area or knows more about these organizations, let me know. My family hails from Bellevue, but I haven't been back in a few years. As always everything is intended to be fictional, but when you set things in a real place issues arise. So just let me know if I blunder and give me some feedback. 
> 
> Also, I really envisioned this chapter being about Bucky, but it sort of became about the group and Steve instead. And there will be more kids joining the GSA and the entire third chapter is all about Bucky, so hang in there! The third chapter will go up either later today or early tomorrow. It's written, I'm just trying to edit it more carefully than the first chapter so that I can get it right the first time around :)
> 
> Thanks for reading! -Brooklyn

"You did a pretty good job putting this stuff together," Bucky said, looking over the flier that Steve had made for the group using a base template and some information from OutLinc – short for Out Lincoln.

For his part, Steve was still trying to pick his brain up off the floor. Did all the gay men in Lincoln look like Bucky? If so, he might need to consider moving.

"Uh... yeah," he replied, because it seemed like Bucky was waiting for him to say something. "Thanks." He shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. "It was no big deal."

Bucky chuckled, setting the flier back down on the table and lifting the pizza box up to sniff at it. "It's pretty cool of you actually. I know it might be awkward for you if people start thinking that you're gay just because you're helping with this kind of group." He looked up at Steve over the pizza box. "It would be totally wrong to eat all this before the kids get here right?"

Steve swallowed nervously. _He thinks I'm straight_ , his inner voice chanted. _He totally does. I should... I should say something... I should..._

"There's probably enough for us to have some too," he said instead, referring back to Bucky's question about the pizza. "I'm not even sure if we're going to …. if anyone is going to show up," he finished lamely.

Bucky didn't seem too concerned about that, shrugging and pushing the top of the box down and shutting it firmly. "Maybe if I don't smell it I won't be as tempted." He looked up at the clock hanging just outside the room. "When was this thing supposed to start again?"

"Uh..." Steve mumbled, caught off guard yet again. He leaned back and craned his neck to check the clock. 6:41. Damn. How long would Bucky stay if no teens showed up for the program? He smiled apologetically and shrugged. "6:30. Teens don't always have the best sense of time though."

The other man pulled out a chair and plopped himself down into it with a weary groan. "You don't have to tell me. I'm trying to wrangle so many of them at the center in Lincoln it's unreal. You can't even imagine the issues, and then once they start aging out of the program and there's nothing for them but bars and the club scene?" He shook his head sadly. "Not good."

Steve sat down as well, feeling a rumble in his belly and desperately hoping that Bucky couldn't hear it. He had felt too nervous and sick to his stomach to eat at his normal dinner time, and now he was really beginning to regret that decision. "You do a lot of work with teens?"

"Oh yeah. We have a movie night, a book club, even a volleyball team, and an entirely separate party planning committee," Bucky chimed in helpfully. "I wasn't sure where we wanted this club to go, but I like to leave it up to the teens. Oftentimes they have better ideas than I do, and if they're working on something they're passionate about it always goes better."

Steve nodded. "Yeah that's pretty much true here as well. Although most of our teens just seem to like video games."

Bucky raised an eyebrow. "In the library?"

Steve laughed. "Yep."

"I wish I was a teen again. They get all the good stuff these days."

Steve was about to say that you really couldn't pay him to grow up as a teen now, with social media and bullying reaching out to follow you home after school. Not to mention the insane political debates and racial inequality that were de rigueur now in America. But at that moment a sandy blonde head popped in the door. It was Erik, one of his regular teens at gaming programs. And a super frequent user of homophobic humor. Great, just great.

"Are you guys eating pizza?" He asked.

Ah, that explained his sudden interest.

It was Bucky who spoke first. "Well, hopefully we will be," he said in a long, lazy drawl. "If only people would show up for the program."

"Ooh, are we playing Smash Brothers tonight? Did I miss the flier? Why didn't someone tell me!"

Steve winced, trying to think of how to explain, but Bucky just dove ahead without a hint of hesitation. "Gay Straight Alliance. This is meeting number one, you can get in on the ground floor before all the posers show up."

"Gay Alliance? You mean like faggots and stuff?"

Steve closed his eyes involuntarily, feeling like somebody had punched him in the stomach. He really should have known better when Hill approached him, how could he have ever imagined that anything good could come from this group? The kids who really needed it probably wouldn't show up, and the ones who did show up would be looking to start a fight.

"Whoa there," Bucky said, "pull up a chair buddy." The plastic meeting room chairs had wheels on them which he used to his advantage as he pulled a chair out and slid it in Erik's general direction.

Steve was mildly horrified – why would he invite him to stay?

Erik looked at the chair as if it was going to leap up and attack him. "I don't know if I want to stay." His eyes darted back and forth between Steve and Bucky. "With all this gay stuff going on."

"What 'gay stuff' do you see going on?" Bucky asked him.

Erik was turning a bit red now, clearly not getting the reaction he wanted as Bucky lounged in his chair, completely calm and at ease. "Just... gay stuff! Are you gay?"

Steve was relieved that the question wasn't aimed at him. Bucky grinned, "Well, that's not really the point of this program. We don't ask people their orientation here. It's a safe space for anyone to come and talk about problems they might have, whether they're gay or straight. We specialize in helping gay and transgender youth, but that's far from all that we do. We even have sessions dedicated to preventing teen pregnancy. And we raise awareness about the issues gay and transgender youth might have in the community. But we don't accuse and we don't demand. Do you understand?"

The teen rolled his eyes, obviously disgusted. "That's such a gay answer."

"Wow," Bucky intoned sarcastically, "I didn't know answers could be into the same gender as themselves. Groundbreaking work, really. Why don't you sit down and we can talk about this more?"

"Do I get pizza?"

Bucky popped the box open and the delicious smell of pizza wafted out. "You betcha. And I hope you decide to stay, because then I get to have some."

Erik all but threw himself down in the chair, reaching for the pizza and taking about five slices before Steve could tell him not to. He decided it really wasn't worth fighting over as he watched Erik wolf it down, all the while staring up at Bucky as if he couldn't quite decide what to make of him.

"Well," Bucky said looking over at Steve. "There's one."

"Excuse me, is this the gay straight club?"

Standing in the doorway were two teenage girls, one black and the other white, linked arm in arm. The black girl was the one who had spoken first, and she definitely seemed to be the more outgoing of the duo. She had her hair pulled up into two buns on either side of her head, and a bright purple shirt with an anime character on it. Her face was a beautiful round shape, and she seemed to be glowing because she had glitter on her cheeks and eyelids. The white girl seemed more subdued, or maybe she just appeared that way next to her shorter friend. She honestly seemed to be trying to disappear behind her, which was pretty impossible because she was tall and lanky, and a good five inches taller. She was dressed fairly conservatively in a long, faded dress with sunflowers on it. The sunflowers were pretty much the same shade as her blonde hair, which brushed her shoulders and had dyed pink ends.

"You found us," Bucky chimed. "Come in, come in, eat the pizza before uhm..."

"Eh-ruk," the teen said with a huge mouthful of food.

"Charming Erik, yes," Bucky continued. "Please come sit with us and charming Erik. I'm Bucky and this is Steve."

Steve waved, feeling awkward and out of place.

"You're the librarian here, aren't you?" The girl with the anime shirt and buns asked him. He realized then that he knew her, and that he had frequently helped her track down books and DVDs. She didn't stick out in his mind, probably because she was never in trouble. Sadly it was the teens that gave you problems that were forever ingrained in your mind. But he remembered that she was an avid reader of sci-fi, and that after he had recommended Dune to her last year she had started coming to him for more and more reading suggestions. Recently they had bonded over their mutual love for Victoria Schwab's "A Darker Shade of Magic" series.

"One of them," Steve said. "You're Olive aren't you?"

The girl nodded, pulling some pizza out the box and piling it onto a plate which she placed between herself and her friend, clearly to share. "You remember me?"

He nodded, "Did you ever get that Noragami DVD?"

"Still waiting for someone to return it."

"Bummer."

The room descended into a quiet lull of group awkwardness. The white girl had her hair hanging in her face and wasn't eating, Olive was staring around at everyone shrewdly as if she was sizing them all up, Bucky had started digging into the pizza but was chewing slowly, and Erik had so much food in his mouth that it was a wonder he hadn't choked. Steve had just started to reach for a paper plate when the conversation started up again with a minor explosion.

"So are you two faggots too?" Erik demanded.

The white girl gave a little gasp that was swallowed up by Olive's exclamation: "What did you just say to me?"

"I'm sorry, - lehz-beh-ians," Erik made that single word sound like three or four words, all of their iterations dirty and despised. "Why does everyone have to be so sensitive these days?"

Olive glared over at Bucky as if Erik's comments were his fault. "You let this cretin in here?"

Bucky shrugged. "I thought it might be educational for him."

"Well here's some education for you," she said turning to Erik, "you can't just call people faggots in this day and age. It's not the 1800s anymore whitey."

"Hey!" Erik shouted back. "Don't call me whitey."

"Just payin' you back a favor!"

"Guys, guys, guys," Steve jumped in, because it seemed like all Bucky was doing was watching the situation go down in flames. "Let's uh..." They both glared at him. "Let's just calm down. Maybe we should uh... call this meeting to order?" He suggested, looking at Bucky hopefully. He wasn't sure how these meetings were supposed to be run, but total anarchy probably wasn't the way to go.

"I thought we already were in order," Bucky said. "Conversations like these can be very interesting."

"You mean you want us to fight each other?" A soft voice emerged from under the fringe of blonde-pink hair.

"Definitely not," he replied. "But sometimes it's interesting to see where conversations go. I'm an advisor, and I can certainly give you my own thoughts and opinions, but I like to follow the flow of the group. This is just a first meeting, so we have to see what develops organically. By the way, I didn't catch your name."

"Joanna," she said, and Steve could see one hazel eye peeking out from her behind her hair. Even her eyes seemed guarded and cautious.

"Lovely Joanna, wonderful name," Bucky said, and the girl smiled, turning a little pink in the face. 

"So what do we do in this fah--" Erik paused as Olive's eyes shot daggers at him. "What do we do in this club anyway?"

"Are you staying?" Olive demanded.

"Why should I get out? Maybe you should get out!"

"I belong here," she protested. "I’m a pansexual."

Erik laughed, "A what?"

She folded her arms across her chest and took a deep breath as if praying for patience. "I can experience sexual attraction to people regardless of their gender identity and biology. That clear enough for you?"

"And what are you?" He demanded of the white girl, who was sinking down in her seat and hunching her shoulders. 

"Now now," Bucky said evenly, "We already covered this Erik, we don't push and we don't demand. If people want to share, that's fine. But that is not the point of this group."

"So what do we do?"

"Well, we can talk about different topics in the gay and transgender community that are on your minds and that we can hopefully do something to address. Even if its as simple as having a movie night or a book discussion group here. Just so everyone knows they have a safe environment they can rely on. A place where they can be themselves without feeling afraid."

Erik looked confused. "Why wouldn't they feel safe? Like you mean at school and stuff?"

Olive fumed. "'Cuz of homophobia jerk!"

"Well maybe if people wouldn't act so gay, they wouldn't have to experience homo.... homo... however you say it!"

Both Steve and Joanna were looking at Bucky for direction, but he just looked nonplussed, munching thoughtfully on some pizza. "This is actually a pretty interesting avenue to explore. So Erik, your position is that people experience homophobia as a reaction to being too aggressively 'gay.' And Olive, your position is - "

"That no matter what, people would still pick on queer people. Look at how people treat black people, even when we aren't doing anything! And you don't choose to be queer anymore than you choose to be black!

"So faggot isn't okay but she can say 'queer?'" the teenager blurted out. "If she can say queer, then I can definitely say faggot!"

"I can say it because I am queer! But you aren't so don't!"

\---

The entire evening passed in a pretty similar manner: Olive and Erik bantered back and forth, Bucky tossed in an occasional observation, and Steve and Joanna were pretty much silent.

At the end of the evening, Steve felt like a punching bag. As the three teens filed out of the library, Olive and Erik still throwing comments back and forth across the library (with the late night patrons staring at them), Steve sighed and went back into the meeting room. Bucky was cleaning up napkins and plates and throwing things in the garbage.

"Well then," Steve said.

Bucky looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. "Well then what?"

He was still sporting his smile, which Steve could hardly believe after the one hour meeting had dragged into a two and a half hour free for all. "Well then that's what you have to work with."

"What exactly do you mean by that?" Bucky seemed genuinely curious about his answer, tilting his head as if he doesn't know what Steve could possibly mean by that statement. Steve had the feeling that he was being deliberately obtuse. 

"It's just... I can understand if you don't want to come back. Or if you think it's a waste of your time. You know, a lost cause."

Steve's heart was sinking at the thought of never seeing Bucky again, but it didn't seem like there was really any reason to continue the club if every session would be like that.

Bucky grinned at him. "I thought it was pretty interesting actually."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I can't wait to see where we go with this. I mean, I have some ideas. The Omaha school board is fighting over bathroom protections for transgender students, and I would love for them to sink their teeth into that, but for right now this is pretty good."

Steve stared back at him, flabbergasted. ""You can't be serious."

Bucky just smiled back at him.

"You can't honestly want to come back here and get pounded at like that again."

"Who's getting pounded now?" Bucky asked innocently, and Steve couldn't hide the flush that crawled up his neck to his face.

"You know what I mean! All the... all that negativity, it's..." He paused, searching for the right word. "It's poisonous."

"Well if you want to sit it out that's alright," Bucky replied. "But it's good for them to know that they have somewhere they can go to speak their minds without the fear of being censored by adults or judged by their peers. Within boundaries, of course, and with moderation. But teenagers are so often silenced, just having a space that they can come to like this is essential. So I want to continue with this, and I think that you're the right person to be here."

He smiled at Steve and gave him puppy dog eyes, which Steve could hardly resist on someone that handsome.

"Don’t give up on this, Steve. Not yet."

He pouted his lips and Steve felt every resistance he ever had falling away. "Okay," he heard himself saying as if from far away. "Maybe next week it will get better."


	3. Winifred

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally we get around to Bucky Barnes and the current insanity that is his life #adorablechildren #stressedandblessed #inneedofahotmaninhislife #Stevecoughsteve #nomorehashtagsiswear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy typos Batman. For anyone who stuck with me through the wreck of a beginning, bless you. I fixed a lot of stuff, so if anyone tries a re-read and notices a lot of changes, that's what that's about.

"Bucky."  

Bucky was drifting aimlessly through nothingness. The world was soft and warm and so very, very comfortable. 

"Buhh-keeyy." 

But he was being prodded by something, something light and almost insubstantial. If he tried, he could probably ignore it. If only it weren't so insufferably insistent and repetitive. 

"Uncle Bucky." 

 _Oh my god, that's right._  

His eyes snapped open to take in a cute red-headed little four year old. Her hair was messy, and she was wearing her favorite Bubble Guppies pajamas. She was desperately trying to reach up and shake him, which was difficult because she was already short and small for her age. And once upon a time, before his sister Rebecca had cancer, before he was assuming guardianship and trying to process his grief at the exact same time, before children were even a glimmer in his mind's eye, he had somehow thought that buying a bed with a high platform was a great idea. 

 _Hey_ , he had thought to himself, _it'll be great for storage in my tiny loft apartment. After all, I don't have a dog. And I definitely don't have kids, and I probably never will. Not my thing._  

And now, because he was just that brilliant, he was currently living in an open floor plan lofted apartment with huge industrial windows and distressed (to put it politely) floors. With brick walls and metal fixtures sticking out of everything, just enough to tempt a small child into trying to climb all over everything and injure themselves. Not to mention the fact that you had to climb a wooden ladder to even get up into the loft. And the bathroom was downstairs. Which was perhaps why his niece was doing her best to wake him up.  

Because she was dancing around a little, twisting her legs together. And while it was pretty adorable, Bucky knew from experience now when a bathroom visit was imminent.  

"Morning Fred," he said. "Need to take a trip to the bathroom?" 

She nodded, and it almost looked like she was on the verge of tears. The cold air of the loft hit him like a wall of ice, and he shivered in his thin white t-shrit and plaid pajama bottoms.  

He picked Fred – full name Winifred, her namesake had been his and Rebecca's mother – and held her in his arms as he carefully made his way down the ladder. When he put her down she all but ran for the bathroom. He had purchased a small children's toilet in there for her, because the regular one that he used was way too high up for her to reach, even with a stepping stool.

He puttered around the kitchen counter and stove, ironically placed right next to the bathroom and directly under the lofted space with his bed (and now Winifred's as well).  

"Do you need help?" He offered in a loud voice even though he knew what the response would be. 

"No!" Fred's little voice rang out, echoing a bit on the tile.  

When she had moved in, he had offered to help her as he had so often seen his sister do in the past. Just accompany her in case she needed something. But she had been vehemently insistent that "no boys" were allowed in the bathroom. Hence the little potty that she could use on her own, instead of the adult toilet that she needed help with. And he always tried to listen to her wishes as best as he could. She was her own person, but he was sad that she felt the need to be so independent at such a young age. 

Or maybe that was just him projecting some sort of psychological bullcrap on her that wasn't really happening. Maybe she just felt weird with Uncle Bucky in the bathroom and that was the end of it. It was just so hard to tell.  

He rummaged around in the kitchen, finally coming up with some Kix cereal for her that he poured into a bowl. It ran out halfway through so he added some Cheerios to it. 

After that he put his head in the fridge, taking out the milk and pouring over it over the cereal. He also found eggs for himself, which he set on the counter to cook in a minute. He toasted some bread and was just putting jam and butter on the table when Fred reappeared.  

"All done?" He asked. She nodded and he gave her the bowl with the cereal and milk. She looked up at him, and he was able at this point to mostly understand what she wanted without her vocalizing it. This was both a good and a bad thing, because she was often silent these days. So it was good that he could tell what she wanted, but also a bad sign overall that she was becoming so quiet and withdrawn.  

"Blueberries?"    
   
She nodded, and he went to the fridge. Luckily they still had a few blueberries rolling around loosely in a box, but that was the last of it. He put them in her bowl, and she shuffled off to the tv area. The tv sat on the opposite wall from the kitchen, on the brick wall which ran two stories up to an exposed ceiling with metal beams. The bowl was tipping precariously to one side, and Bucky kept an eye on it as they went into the living room. 

He turned on Bubble Guppies for her before going back to the kitchen. That was all Fred seemed to like anymore – cartoons and zoning out in front of the tv. That couldn't be normal for a four year old right?  

He tossed some eggs in a pan and cooked them on the stove, looking over at Fred while he did so. He wondered if maybe he should take her to see a therapist. She might benefit from having someone to talk to other than him. And someday he would have to enroll her in a regular preschool. She couldn't just keep going to his neighbor's place all the time, no matter how nice Esther was about their situation. 

He sighed, another problem for another day. First things first. Take care of today. And hopefully tomorrow would magically take care of itself. 

\--- 

"I just don't know if these colors set the right tone for the meeting rooms." 

Bucky felt about ready to smash his head into the table, but his supervisor Brian just nodded his head like a sage on the mountainside surveying the whispering wind.    
   
"We don't want people to think we're classless or that we just threw something together," Marianne continued. Marianne was one of his coworkers at Out Linc, and she had a lot of opinions about everything. Right now they were trying to pick out furniture to replace the old, worn out couches and armchairs that they had acquired more than seven years ago. Pretty much none of the existing furniture matched, and what did match often had holes and graffiti on it.  

They had had a fundraiser roughly a month ago at the August Pride BBQ to generate funds for the renovation. And what they had generated was more than any of them had imagined, but it turned out that even the ugly institutional furniture they typically used in schools was damned expensive. And nice fabric patterns that were durable were doubly so. 

Thus, all the arguing. Marianne kept insisting that they should go back to the drawing board and look at different fabrics and types of furniture, because she just didn't think the patterns "went together." And that they should be "better stewards of the community's money." Bucky thought they had to be realistic.  

The other coworkers of his that were in on this meeting were Kyle and Louise. Louise seemed to be staying quiet, as she typically did, because she avoided every type of confrontation that she could. She had straight mousy brown hair, and she was pretending to be thoroughly engaged with the virtual calendar on her phone. Bucky thought it was all an act though. And Kyle seemed to be nursing his typical hangover if the circles under his eyes and the two venti iced coffees parked in front of him were anything to go by.  

And his manager Brian seemed to be pondering the secrets of life at the head of the table. Which left Bucky and Marianne to argue it out.  

"We can't buy what we can't afford," Bucky said, making one last ditch effort to stave off Hurricane Marianne.  

"Well maybe we should have another fundraiser," she replied.  

Kyle groaned. "I'm too tired out from the last one!" He protested, actually folding his arms and then laying his head down on the table like he was about to go to sleep. Bucky resisted the urge to turn and look at his boss like he was on the Office. He wanted to stand up and shout out: _Are you seeing this? Are you seeing this Brian? And you pay us all the same, and he gets to act like this?_  

"I think whoever wants to donate has probably already donated," he said instead, trying for the logical approach, as if that would ever work. "It isn't fair to go back and ask them when they've already given." 

"We'll just be asking those who haven't," Marianne said. She was stone walling at that point, and Bucky thought that he might just throw in the towel. He had multiple programs to plan for, people to call and schedule meetings and outreaches with, and he just wanted the meeting to be over and damn the consequences. 

"How will we know who donated and who didn't? All donations are anonymous." 

Marianne glared at him. "People will realize we don't mean them. They know we would never ask them to give twice." 

"I think..." A tremulous voice came out of Louise and everyone turned to stare at her. They couldn't help themselves, she was like Silent Bob, so quiet that when she finally spoke everyone was forced to pay attention to her. "I think I can go back to the warehouse and look at more fabrics. Maybe there's something we haven't considered yet." 

 _What a trooper. Volunteering for five more hours of mind numbing fabric? Only Louise would do something like that._  

Brian accepted her offer, appeasing Marianne for now. Although Louise would have to face her wrath if she came back with fabrics that (heaven forbid) Marianne didn't approve of. They jumped to the next item on the staff meeting agenda and started discussing the pumpkin painting and apple picking event that they were planning for October. Kyle finally popped up from behind his arms and joined the conversation. Party planning was always his forte, and Bucky was glad to sit back and let him duke it out with Marianne over flier colors.  

The meeting ran over by about forty minutes, leaving Bucky running late all day. He spent a lot of it planning events, talking to people on the phone and scheduling talks at schools to help prevent teen pregnancy and the spread of STDs. Before he knew it, it was time for the afternoon teen book club. The teens in his Lincoln group were pretty numerous – about 20 regulars and 30 more who floated in and out.  

The book group was never quite as popular as the movie night, but he still had 16 kids show up to discuss the newest book selection. On a rotating basis, the teens were allowed to select a title for discussion. They had to be regulars in the program and dedicated to leading the discussion, but that was really the only requirement. And this time around one of his teens had picked out a book called _Into White __by Randi Pink. It wasn't LGBT themed, and the books didn't have to be. But he still wished they had chosen something different when it became apparent immediately how controversial the title was._

The basic plot was that a young African American girl living in a pretty much all-white southern community prays to Jesus to be "anything but black." And surprise, surprise, Jesus himself descended and bestowed his "blessing" upon her. Bucky thought the whole thing was strange, and it gave him a sick feeling in his stomach. But everyone seemed to have strong opinions (both good and bad) and wanted to vocalize them, which led to a healthy discussion... one that sprawled out of the allotted time space and ran nearly until 7. 

So by the time he closed up at the center and ran by their favorite local Italian restaurant for pizza and spaghetti, it was already 8 PM. He knocked on Esther's door with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He felt guilty, knowing that Fred deserved so much more from him. But how could he give her the care she needed and still keep the lights on? Rebecca was a single mother, and she had always made it look so easy.  

"You look like hell." 

"You always know just what to say to make a man feel special, Esther." 

If he had to guess, he would say that Esther has to be in her 90s. It's cliché to say it, but she seemed ageless. She still kept her regal silver hair pinned up on her head, and her dark brown eyes gleamed with intelligence. She was savvy and tough, and Bucky always felt like she was taking him to task when she talked to him.  

"Is that dinner?" She asked, pointing at the bags in his hands. 

"Thought you might appreciate it," he replied. 

"Would have appreciated it much more two hours ago." She held open the door. "Come on inside." 

It turned out that she had made some mac and cheese for Fred around six or so. As for the kid herself, she was already conked out and sleeping soundly on the floor. She had been coloring and had fallen asleep right there, even with crayons sticking to her face. 

"We have to talk about this situation," Esther started as soon as they had dished up their plates and taken a seat around the small table. The lighting in the apartment was low and subdued, making Bucky feel like he was in some sort of cave. He gave out a groan when she started talking. He had known it was coming, but the last thing he wanted after a long day was another argument. "Now you knew this was coming. I thought maybe I would give you a few months to get over the grief of losing your sister before I came out. And somehow I thought things might level out at work for you, that things might start running more smoothly."   
   
Bucky was silent, picking at his spaghetti as Esther continued. "But then school started up and you didn't enroll her in a preschool. Day after day she comes here to be with me. And don't get me wrong, we have a wild good time together. But it's not enough. She needs to get an education Bucky. She needs a family. She deserves it. Now I know your sister wanted her to be raised by family, and I appreciate that, I really do. But the truth of the matter is that your sister isn't here. And you're going to have to start asking yourself if this is really what's best for her. For both of you, really. Are you getting what you need out of life right now?" 

"There really isn't time for me right now," Bucky told her, angry that she would even ask about him. "And that's okay. This is about Fred." 

"Well as the saying goes 'if Mama isn't happy, ain't nobody happy.'" 

"Oh so I'm 'Mama' now am I? Weird thing to say to a gay man."  

Esther rolled her eyes. "This isn't about you being gay. It's about priorities and where you put them." 

He put down his fork and stared at her. "Are you saying I haven't prioritized her? After everything I've done - "   
   
"Shh." Esther put a finger to her lips, and Bucky turned in his chair to look at Fred, who rolled over a bit and snuggled down again with a happy sigh. "I'm not saying you haven't prioritized her." 

"Then what are you saying? I can't exactly quit my job." 

"Well maybe you need to talk to your boss. See what tasks can be passed to others. Lighten your workload or change your hours." 

"Nobody else at work is single and trying to take care of a kid. They just wouldn't understand."  

"Well maybe you can be the first one then. Set the path. And enroll that child in a preschool, pronto." 

Bucky opened his mouth to argue, but the look on Esther's face stopped him cold. 

"I'll try." 

She glared at him, mouth puckered in displeasure at his response. "Since I'm old and withered and likely have hair growing out of my ears, I'm going to give you one more saying young grasshopper. Do or do not, there is no try." 


	4. The Dreaded Preschool Fair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky attends the much-dreaded daycare/preschool fair and is happy to see a familiar face in the crowds. Sam Wilson and Peggy Carter also make an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't had as many familiar faces from the MCU as I have original characters. I'm going to try and do better going forward, promise!

The Preschool and Daycare Fair at the Bennett Martin Public Library was a whirlwind of activity. Bucky was (as per usual) running about 15 minutes late, so when he showed up the event was already in full swing. There was a dizzying array of different options to choose from, and so many booths he hardly knew where to start. And everywhere there were attractive, freshly-pressed heterosexual couples wandering around, laughing, chatting, and just generally hamming it up.  

He couldn't help but feel a tad out of place. Suddenly his chest was tight, and he felt like the walls were closing in on him. Could he really do this? Who was he to raise a child? What if he totally fucked her up? He had absolutely no idea what he was doing, he was just pretending. He had never felt like a real adult himself, and now here he was, in charge of an actual live person. What had Rebecca been thinking, leaving her with him?

He felt like a total and utter fraud. He dashed to the lobby where he was able to locate a bathroom. He was splashing cold water on his face when he caught sight of a familiar face in the mirror behind him. For a half second he wasn't sure if he was hallucinating or not. 

"Steve?" He asked, and when he turned around there he was – Steve Rogers, relatively (from what he knew) mild-mannered librarian. Looking at him. He suddenly became aware that they were standing in a dirty public restroom, and he felt a wall of awkward silence descend between them. Suddenly someone in one of the closed stalls at the back flushed, the door opening and letting out a beefy man who was actually wearing overalls. The door to the stall banged on the wall, breaking whatever spell had just existed between them. 

"Bucky." Steve said, standing there looking just as uncomfortable as Bucky felt. "How uh... how's it going?" 

Bucky laughed. Typically he would make a bad joke along the lines of "fancy running into you here," but at the moment he just didn't have it in him. "Do you just work at all of the libraries?" He goes with instead.  

"Oh, I'm not working," Steve said. He ran his hands under the tap at the sink next to Bucky, who gave him a mental thumbs up both for washing his hands and for actually using soap. +1 to general hotness assessment for good hygiene habits.  

"Ah. Very enlightening," Bucky replied sardonically. "That explains everything." 

The other man laughed, shaking his head. "I'm helping a friend. Sorry, I'm usually more talkative. I'm just..." He paused. "Tired I guess. A friend of mine is putting on this huge Preschool Fair tonight, and she's in something of a mood. Her name is Sheila, and normally she's a peach, but events like this really stress her out."    
   
"Preschool and Daycare Fair?" Bucky felt a bit faint.    
   
"Yeah, all the preschools and daycare facilities in the area get a booth, all the better to market themselves to anxious parents, I guess." Steve shrugged as if that made perfect sense, but Bucky had never even heard of such a thing before last week when Esther had pointed it out in the newsletter the library sent to her house along with books via homebound outreach services.   
   
"And you said your friend is running it?"   
   
"Yeah, Sheila. She knows everybody in Lincoln, and she's sort of like a second mother to me. Her daughter Peggy and I were friends growing up, so I basically lived at her house during middle school. She's the one who got me the job working for the library in Bellevue. She's been a librarian for what feels like forever, and she's the one who encouraged me to apply for a job when I moved back after college. She said it was a great career, and I just followed her advice."  

Bucky stared at Steve, wondering what strange twist of fate was causing them to run into each other yet again. He imagined that Steve must be straight, with that built muscular physique and that super-nice-frat-boy vibe he had going on. Interacting with him was like watching one of those As Seen on TV ads. You wanted to believe that the product was just that good, but the rational part of your brain knew it probably wasn't. And yet you were still tempted to lay your money down and say 'screw it' on the off chance that it wasn't just a scam.  

"You doing okay?" Steve asked him. He realized then that his mind had wandered off into space, and he tried to pull it back down again.  

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just tired." He smiled. "Guess it's must be going around. I'm actually here for that – that thing - "  

Steve frowned. "The Preschool Fair?" 

"Yeah, that. It was just... there was so many options when I got in there you know? I had no idea where to go. How can you possibly tell the difference between all those places?" 

The other man was still looking at him as if he had grown three heads. "But I thought you were gay."  

Chalk another one up for mister-must-be-heterosexual. "What are you saying, that gay people can't have families?" 

The blush that crept up on Steve when he said that was so cute it made him want to see just how far under his shirt it went. "No, no, not at all! I just thought that uhm that you were single." 

"And how did you discern that?" 

"I'm just – I have to get back, to the Preschool Fair – Sheila, you know, I have to help -" And with that, Steve all but ran out of the bathroom, bumping into the garbage on his way. He actually apologized to the garbage can before he left, which just further endeared him to Bucky's poor, suffering heart.    
 

\--- 

   
After taking a moment to breath and collect himself, Bucky dived back into the Fair. He collected information from booth after booth of smiling people. Each face blurred into another, and he had a full stack of papers when he reached the end of the first row.  

The last booth was managed by a sprightly woman with a devilish smile. "Hi there!" She smiled, showing off insanely white teeth. "I’m Rachel, Rachel Leighton!" She reached across the table to shake his head vigorously. Her hand was surprisingly cold, and it gave him an involuntary shudder. "I'm here representing Les Pomme Enfants Academy!" 

"Nice to meet you," Bucky said, rubbing his hands together surreptitiously and trying to warm the right one up again.    
   
"Are you all alone?" Rachel's smile was positively sinister. He couldn't put his finger on why she seemed so terrifying, it was just something about her. She exuded some sort of aura that made him want to turn and run the other way. He started trying to think of elaborate schemes to get away from her and move onto another booth. Fake a stomach cramp? Then how could he continue with the other booths? Urgent phone call? Impossible to arrange right now. 

"Yeah, I …" his and Fred's situation was absolutely none of this woman's business he decided. And there was something about her that made him reticent to share any personal information. "Yeah, I'm here alone." 

"Aww," she made a very fake sad face at him and all but coo'ed the word. "That's too bad. Recently single?" 

He shook his head and said nothing, focusing on the brochures of brightly beaming children in tidy uniforms sitting in neat rows reading from books and doing math. He couldn't help but notice every single one of them was white, and that all of the girls has perfectly long curled hair and the boys had short trim cuts. Was this a daycare or a cult? 

"Well," she continued, "you should know that Les Pommes Enfants is the very best school for early childhood education that money can afford! We have a fully locked down school with codes for parents, teachers, and administrators only. Children are locked in at the start of the day, and if you don't have a code you can't get in or out. So you won't ever have to worry about safety ever again."   
   
Safety? It sounded like a prison. 

"And we send hourly updates directly to your phone on the progress of your child! We tell you how they're doing and send you photos as well." 

"Every hour?" Bucky couldn't help but ask the question, dreading the answer. 

"Of course!" Came the chirped reply. "We know how hard separation can be from your special little one!" She reached across the table and gave him a playful swat.  

"Wow... uh that's really something."  

"We also start mandatory testing right away." 

"Testing?" 

"Of course! There's the entrance exams of course, and parents must come to be interviewed as well, so that we can make sure that we select the right team of children to bond and work together in the learning environment! At the Academy we have a saying, 'you can't let rotten apples spoil the barrel!' And testing right away is of the utmost importance as it ensures that the children will understand what is required for the. And it prepares them for their future. Our students always go on to excel and often attain scores in the highest brackets on the third grade mandatory state tests."   
   
Bucky frowned, unable to stop himself. "Impressive." 

He said it sarcastically, but Rachel ignored him, trying to hand him a clipboard over the table to sign up for their email list which would also get him a pre-enrollment form. 

"Why hello there!" A hand fell on his shoulder, and Bucky turned to look into a complete stranger's face. "It's been so long since I've seen you!" 

The stranger in question was a very attractive black man who had his hair cut in a fade, a well manicured goatee, and the most brilliant thousand watt smile that Bucky had ever seen. "Uh..." He was torn, not wanting to embarrass the man (who had clearly mistaken him for someone else), yet still wanting to escape from Rachel's clutches.   
   
"Come on, come over here, we need to catch up," The man went on. He shot that brilliant smile of his at Rachel, who melted under his attention. "You'll have to excuse us miss, I've been looking for this man all damn day. It has been too long!"  

He wrapped an arm around Bucky's shoulder and started leading him away. "Just go with it," he whispered into Bucky's ear.  

Bucky wasn't sure if he was being abducted or what, but whatever the game was it would get him away from creepy Rachel Leighton. They rounded the corner of booths and Bucky saw a table piled high with cookies and cans of soda. "Sorry about that," the guy said releasing him. "But I was sent to rescue you. I'm Sam, Sam Wilson."  

Bucky shook the man's hand, wondering who could have possibly sent him over. Sam steered him around a table and into a small side alcove where Steve was standing around a coffee urn with a man and a woman he had never met before. Based on the brightly colored lanyards around their necks, he gathered that they were all library staff. "Come join us at the magical coffee machine!" Sam said, throwing his arms out like a king showing off his palace. 

"Thank you Sam," Steve said. 

Sam slapped Steve on the back with a resounding thwack that made Bucky wince. "No problem man, no problem! Always looking out for you, you know. Even when you don't call me for weeks at a time, moping around in that big house of yours like you're alone in the world." He pushed on before Bucky could ask any questions. "So how's the night going? We need to call in any more reinforcements?" 

"No I think we're good. It's almost over anyway," Steve replied. "Bucky, this is the Director of this library, Phil Coulson."   
   
Coulson was a short, fairly unassuming man with dark hair and blue eyes. But when Bucky shook his hand, he had a grip like iron. And his eyes told Bucky that he wasn't someone to mess with. 

"And this is Sheila, she's worked here for... how long now? Since dinosaurs roamed the earth?" 

"Since before you were born, kiddo, and don't you forget it," Sheila said. "Thanks for reminding me." She smiled and shook Bucky's hand. "Very nice to meet you Bucky." 

"Nice to meet you too."   
   
Sheila eyed Steve with a mischievous grin, "I've known this one since he was still in utero, so any embarrassing stories you need, I've got 'em. He even dated my daughter if you can believe that!" 

He had figured that Steve was heterosexual, but having it confirmed was still something of a slap in the face. 

"When I was in middle school!" Steve protested. "I didn't even know what dating was back then." 

Sheila laughed, throwing her head back. "I still remember Valentine's Day of sixth grade, that hysterical card you made for her. And those poor chocolates!" She looked over at Bucky as if sharing an inside joke. "He left them in his book bag." 

"And they melted," Steve finished. "Because I was sitting in the back next to the radiator. And now every single time she meets a new friend of mine, she has to re-live my shame and embarrassment."  

"Oh, we all do goofy things when we're young," Sheila said. "Could have happened to anyone. Would you like some coffee Bucky?" 

He eagerly accepted and listened to yet more nauseatingly sweet stories of Steve and his first childhood crush, whose name apparently was Peggy. Coulson left after a minute or two to mingle, and Bucky knew that he should probably get back to trying to pick a school for Fred. But watching Sheila and Sam roast Steve and reveal every humiliating story about him was just too good of an opportunity to pass up.  

It seemed as if Steve and Sam had known each other forever. They had grown up in the same neighborhood, along with Peggy and Sheila – before Sheila was offered a position as the head of adult services for the main branch in Lincoln. So in the eighth grade Peggy and Sheila had packed it all up, complete with the rest of their family which included Peggy's father and older brother.  

All of this had left Steve "broken hearted" Sheila joked.  

"But he recovered," Sam finished, and they both of them burst into laughter, but Bucky didn't really understand what was so funny.  

"And here she is, lady of the hour!" Sheila crowed.  

Sheila and Peggy hugged, and Bucky felt the hole in his stomach growing even larger. Peggy was positively gorgeous, with thick curly brown hair falling artfully around her face from a graceful up do. She had expressive doe-eyes, thick lashes, and the darkest ruby red lips he had ever seen. And seeing her standing next to Steve was like looking straight into a Norman Rockwell painting.  

"This is Bucky," Sheila finally said, and Peggy shook his hand like a queen would, the right amount of pressure to convey authority and yet still somehow gentle and soft.  

"So good to meet you at last," she said smiling. "Steve has talked a lot about you."  

Talked a lot about him? They had only meet once. "He's a very nice guy," Bucky replied.  

"Don't talk about me as if I'm not here," Steve jumped in. 

"Over seventy years ago we lost our dear friend Steve, sometimes I think I can still hear his voice," Sam said, causing more laughter. Steve throws in the obligatory "Stop telling everyone I'm dead!" 

Sheila wasn't in on the joke, so Steve tried to explain it to her. Peggy looked over at Bucky curiously. "So," she asked him. "Steve tells me that you work for Out Linc." 

"I do indeed," Bucky said. He wondered what sort of career she had. Something glamorous he imagined.  

"And what sort of work do you do for them?" 

"Oh all kinds of stuff really. No day is ever the same. I work a lot with teens really. We have a book club group, a movie night, that kind of thing. We go to the schools a lot and talk about STD prevention." Sometimes saying what he did for a living out loud made Bucky feel really stupid, but he wasn't sure why. It just seemed like he was always comparing himself to others and he never measured up. 

"That sounds fascinating," Peggy replied. "I imagined that you must have experience working with teens or else they wouldn't have sent you to help Steve with the gay straight alliance in Bellevue. He says that you're really good with them. Very calm and even tempered."  

Wow, Steve had said that? "So uh, so what do you do?" He asked her so that they could move on from the moment of awkwardness that had settled between them."  

"She works in early literacy at the best daycare and preschool around!" Sheila cut into their conversation, putting her arm around Peggy and hugging her yet again. "I'm just so proud of you!" 

"The way she talks about me you would think that I cured cancer. All I did was get hired at a daycare that might never get off the ground." 

"It's a huge achievement," Sheila told her. "Don't put yourself down!" 

"I'm just worried. The preschool is just starting this year, and it's hard to compete with..." 

"Lehz Pohmmmee Ehnfaaahnts?" Sam joked. 

Peggy's mouth turned down at the ends. "Joke all you want, but they're the most sought after daycare and preschool in Lincoln. People line up to be turned down by them. And we can't even find enough students to fill our classrooms." 

"What's it like?" Bucky asked her. 

Everyone turned to look at him, and Peggy asked him "What do you mean?" 

"Well at that other school It seems like they have them pretty locked down. With codes. And texting you pictures of them every hour. And - " 

"Mandatory state testing, yes I know the sales pitch," Peggy said. "But life is about so much more than standardized scores. It's sad how we try to tie children down even at that young of an age." 

"It sounds like a prison. Not the type of place you would want to put a child." Bucky couldn't imagine putting Fred in a school like that, especially not with the anxiety she had, with how silent she was becoming. They would eat her up and spit her out.  

"Do you have children Bucky?" Peggy was looking at him curiously as was everyone else. 

"I have a niece who... well she's mine now I guess. I adopted her after her mother passed away a few months ago. Rebecca wanted her to uh... she wanted her to stay with family." A lump rose in his throat and he felt the hot brush of tears behind his eyes. Every time he thought he was over his grief, another wave arose and threatened to suck him around. Maybe that was how Fred felt too.  

"Well what an angel you are," Sheila said. She reached out and patted his arm. It didn't feel fake like when Rachel had touched him, it felt real and genuine. It was as authentic as the expression of concern in her eyes. "I'm sure that must be hard. You aren't married right?" 

He shrugged, not wanting it to come off as if Fred was some sort of burden to him. "It's been an adjustment to be sure. But what else can you do?"  

"So that's what you're doing at a daycare/preschool fair. Man I told you, you should have just asked!" Sam punched Steve playfully in the arm.  

"I didn't want to pry about it, geez." Steve smiled over at him, and Bucky's heart lurched like it always did when he looked at him. "I didn't know you were going through such a tough time. I'm sorry to hear about your sister." 

"Thanks." Bucky was about to say more, but suddenly the lights in the room flickered low and back up again. Sheila gave a heavy sigh.  

"Time to start closing this rodeo down," she said. She reached out as she passed, and put a soothing hand on Bucky's arm. "I'm very sorry to hear about your sister. Keep in touch and let me know if there's anything you need. I live right here in Lincoln so I'll help out anyway I can." 

"Thank you." 

Bucky could now clearly see that the event was ending. People were packing away brochures and table clothes, leaving the room looking strangely bare and empty. 

"Great, I missed it," he grumbled. "Now I'll never find one." 

"You could always consider the school that Peggy works at," Steve suggested. 

"Oh don't put that on him, Steve, our problems with enrollment don't make us a charity case." Peggy rolled her eyes at Steve and turned a more serious look on Bucky. "Do what's best for your niece Bucky." 

Bucky wasn't sure about sending Fred to an unknown preschool, but they were all unknown at that point. And Peggy had to be alright if she was close to Steve. And at least her school didn't sound like a prison. So he bit the bullet, swallowed and said the dreaded words:  

"Do you have any brochures?"


	5. This is Halloween (Or not because it's way too early Sharon)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Halloween meeting of the gay-straight alliance of Bellevue Library is slightly less painful than the first. Steve and Bucky meet again, Sharon is adorable and far too obsessed with Halloween, and the group gets some new teens. *Steve's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, I've had a horrible bout of the flu that I've been fighting off. 
> 
> Gender pronoun info from Bryn Mawr:   
> http://www.brynmawr.edu/pensby/documents/AskingforNameandPronouns.pdf
> 
> Omaha Public School board argues over policies regarding transgender students: http://www.omaha.com/news/education/passions-flare-as-ops-board-considers-policies-regarding-transgender-students/article_12154d38-6344-11e6-83ef-93604edcdeed.html
> 
> "During a two-hour public comment period, opponents invoked Sodom and Gomorrah and argued that transgender students were troubled and confused, requiring help and compassion but not public accommodations. Altogether, 20 people urged the school board to vote against expanding any policies to include transgender students, while five spoke in support."

"This is Halloween, this is Halloween!" Sharon all but danced into the staff room, waving bags around herself dramatically. She was sporting a burnt orange sweater with a black cat stitched on the front, tight blue jeans, and brown boots that went up to her knees. 

"Oh Jesus Freaking Christ," Steve thumped his head down on the table. He must have been more aggressive than he realized, because it actually hurt. "Ow," he moaned to himself.

"Oh stop whining you big baby," Sharon threw the bags down on the ground and stood over him with a hand dramatically propped on her hip. "Get excited! It's Halloween!"

"It is not," Steve protested. "It's October 1st. It's barely fall, let alone Halloween."  
  
She poked her lips out, pouting, big expressive brown eyes full of woe at Steve's attitude towards her favorite holiday.  She broke out into a sudden grin. "You have a red spot on your forehead now."  
  
"I do not." Dread crept up on him. "Do I? Are you serious?"  
  
She nodded, clapping her hands together manically. "Steve's got a red spot! Steve's got a red spot!"

He got up and looked in the tiny mirror over the sink. Their staff break room is pretty pathetic really. Little more than a glorified closet it has one long table with chairs, some counter space, a microwave, an old fridge, and a rusted over sink that has a cracked mirror hanging above it. "Ugh, I do!"

"That's what you get for spurring the gods of Halloween."

She was now pulling out stuff from the bags. Copious amounts of fake spider webbing, plastic pumpkins, a witch broom that moves on its own, fake vampire teeth, and the candy, candy, candy. The craziest candy selection was a whole set of glow in the dark eyeballs that were actually lollipops. "Are you supposed to eat things that glow in the dark?" Steve asked her. "I thought that went against nature."

"You know you're going to have to help me put up all of these displays," she told him calmly, separating out candy to put in a bowl. They had actually had the bowl for a few years. It had a fake bottom with a sleeve in it that you could reach up into to grab kid's hands. Many of the kids and teens in the area knew about the hand already, but it still made them scream with delight when Sharon grabbed them from under the reference desk. They never knew if she was under there or not, and the danger of taking candy when you didn't know if you were going to get grabbed was something that gave all of the neighborhood kids a thrill. There were also one or two old pervy men who loved to put their hands in there, but that was a whole other issue.

"Oh thank god you got coffee," Steve said when he noticed that she had restocked them during her trip to the store.

"Thought you might appreciate that," she said, winking. "Is it enough bribery to get your help putting up these displays? I can't reach high enough to put up all that webbing."

"You know I have that gay straight alliance meeting tonight," he complained. "Am I not suffering enough already?"

"It'll be fine," Sharon told him. "Besides, no matter how the kids act you'll still get to see hotty mc-hotterson right?"

Steve groaned. "Why did I ever tell you about him?"

"You didn't have to, Steve. I have eyes you know. And so does Sam. And both of us have concluded you're stupidly in love with him for someone you hardly know." 

"Oh yeah I forgot you two are thick as thieves these days. Should I expect a happy announcement any day now?"

"I told you its not like that." Sharon's tone was strangely defensive. "We're just friends. He's into this crazy red head who's a detective at the police station near his house anyway. I guess he always sees her out running or something, and he keeps trying to tag along to flirt with her."

"Sounds like Sam to me," Steve said. "What is he ever going to do if he falls for someone who isn't a runner?"

She shook her head, blonde hair falling in her eyes. "The world may never know. Now help me hang these cobwebs asap!"

\----

Steve was surprised at how quickly time passed while he helped out Sharon. Before he knew it, was 5:30 and he was ordering pizza for the club, nervously waiting out his own dinner time.

"Aren't you going to eat something?" Sharon asked him, munching on some wonderful-smelling rich/chicken combo she cooked up at home. Steve really needed to learn how to cook. He could do simple meals, but he never took much pleasure in it. Definitely not like his mother had. 

There was a tentative knock on the staff room door, and Steve's heart did a nervous pitter-pat. It was super early, way too early for...

He opened the door to find Bucky on the other side of it, looking somehow irresistible in a thin blue sweater that matched his eyes and dark jeans. It looked like he had gotten a hair cut, and his longish hair flipped out adorably around the edges. 

"Sorry I'm so early," he said. "I thought there was going to be more traffic on I-75. Figured there was no use lurking around the parking lot like a creep." 

"Oh yeah, definitely," Steve propped the door open, gesturing Bucky inside. "Would you.. actually the pizza isn't here yet. I just ordered it. Sorry."

"You've discovered my real reason for coming here," Bucky joked. "Free food." He stopped when he saw Sharon sitting and eating. "Why hello there. I think I remember you from last time."  
  
"Sharon," she said, munching away happily. "Just enjoying my dinner after a hard day of good work."

Bucky raised an eyebrow.

"She made us put up the Halloween decorations today," Steve filled him in, sitting down.

"Ah, I see," Bucky replied, sitting down at the table.

"Sharon is very into Halloween."  
  
"It's not my fault that it's obviously the best of all the holidays," she said. "Free candy, costumes, horror movies, haunted houses..." she waved a fork around absently. "Are you doing anything fun for Halloween?" she asked, directing her question at Bucky in a way that made Steve's stomach squirm with nervousness. "Any special plans with a special somebody?"

Steve glared at her behind Bucky's back as he answered. "Ah, no not really," he said. 

"Not really or no there's nobody special in your life?" Sharon asked, going for the full-court press.

"Nobody special," Bucky laughed. "Not right now. I've uh... I've been taking care of my niece for the past few months. Not too much time for... much else."

"How is she doing?" Steve asked.

Bucky grinned, and Steve wasn't sure if he imagined it but he looked a bit pink around the ears. And definitely grateful for the rescue from Sharon. "Pretty good. She's starting at that preschool on Monday. I'm hoping it goes okay. She's a little... quiet these days."  
  
"I can imagine." Steve frowned. He couldn't even imagine how difficult it must be to be only four years old and lose your sole parent. It would be more than difficult. Heartbreaking really.

"I lost my mother recently," he found himself saying. It was almost like the words slipped out of their own volition.

"I'm sorry," Bucky said.

"It's okay," Steve shrugged, "she was sick... a long time. We uh... we had time to prepare."  
  
"That doesn't make it any easier. My sister had cancer, and we knew she wasn't going to make it. But you always hope, you know. No matter how bad it is."

It seemed for an instant like the world faded away as Bucky and Steve locked eyes. In his gaze, Steve could see reflected back at him the pain and loneliness he felt over his own mother. It was such a relief to look into someone's eyes who seemed like they truly knew what he was going through that he almost burst into messy tears. He didn't realize until that moment just how alone he had felt, and how much grief still lingered within him, undiscovered.

He took a deep breath and steadied himself. "Anyone up for some tea or coffee?"

Bucky agreed to coffee, and Sharon excused herself. As she passed by, she touched him briefly on his arm just above his elbow. He was grateful for the contact, and he bit back the strong emotions that had risen up in him. He couldn't fall apart at work, he just couldn't. 

\---

Before long, he and Bucky were setting up for the meeting together. They moved chairs and tables around in the meeting room in comfortable silence. Every so often, Steve would look up and see Bucky looking at him. But he would quickly look away again, and he wasn't sure if his imagination was playing tricks on him.

At around 6:15 Erik sulked by, lingering in the doorway with a dark look on his face. "You guys havin' that club again?" he asks.

"In about fifteen minutes, yeah," Steve said. 

Erik looked down at his feet. 

"Would you like to join us?"

The boy shrugged. "If you guys want me here," he mumbled.

"Now why wouldn't we want your sunshiny face," Bucky said from across the room. "Here take a journal."

The boy looked at him skeptically. "You're going to make us write?"

"Yep. Your journal stays with you for the rest of the meetings. We'll do some reflecting work together, and then you can write in it when you aren't here if you have other thoughts."

"That sounds totally gay."

Bucky sighed. "We are going to have to work on your vocabulary."

Erik took a chair just as the pizza arrived, and Steve paid for it, bringing it over to the table.

"Hi, is this the uh... the uh..." A skinny and short person Asian person is standing in the doorway, looking uncertain. Steve's first instinct is to label the person as a girl because of their height and weight, but they're wearing stereotypically "male" clothing. A large t-shirt under a green flannel shirt with baggy cargo pants and clunky brown shoes.

"The Gay Straight Alliance," Bucky said. "Come on in." He offered them a hand to shake. "I'm Bucky, and I use he and him pronouns. What pronouns should we use for you in this space?"

"Theo." A flushed face and anxious dark eyes dart around the room. "I uh... I use they and them pronouns."

"What does that mean?" Erik asked.

"Get some pizza, Theo," Bucky said. "And don't mind Erik, we're in the process of educating him. Oh, and pick out a journal you like."

Theo sat down at the end of the table away from the small cluster of Bucky and Erik, and Steve picked a seat roughly in the middle. "Some people use gender neutral pronouns," Bucky explained to Erik.

"I don't get it, why?"

"Because some people don't identify with the strict gender binary," Bucky told him. "That's just one reason, but it's a common one."

"What's the gender binary?"

"Male and female. And some people feel like they fit somewhere in the middle or not even on the spectrum at all. So using gender neutral pronouns is a way to get away from the gender expectations and limitations of our society."

Erik blinked, but was conspicuously absent of the vitriol he had spewed the week before. He just said 'huh' and went back to eating.

Olive and Joanna showed up then, with a new boy in tow. "We're heeerree!" The new teen sung out, throwing his arms wide. He had spiky blond hair, blue eyes, and was dressed in tight designer jeans and a Hollister sweater.

"Oh great," Erik muttered. "Tyler is here."

"I see you're here again," Olive said to him, frowning.

"I told you I'm not going anywhere," he shot back.

"Alright, alright, alright, get some pizza people and settle down," Bucky broke in. "Everyone take a journal. Bucky, he and him pronouns," he introduced himself to the new arrival. "I imagine your name is Tyler."

"Great to be here," Tyler smiled, eyes twinkling. Is he flirting? Steve wondered. It seemed like he was, even though Bucky had a good decade or two on him.

After that Bucky had everyone go around and introduce themselves. Most of the teens followed his example and expressed their gender pronouns. Theo was the sole user of they/them pronouns. Joanna and Olive used she/her pronouns, and Erik and Tyler along with Steve and Bucky used he/him pronouns.

"So for tonight I thought maybe we could talk about gender stereotyping." The group was pretty much quiet, looking at Bucky. "I don't know how many of you have been following what's going on with the Omaha Public schools and the bathroom bill - "

"Oh we all know all about that," Tyler interrupted. "Those assholes." 

"Language," Joanna whispered.

He looked over at her. "Assholes!" he said, louder. "Cavemen stuck in a medieval era mentality." He made a 'psh-aw' noise and a shoo'ing motion with his hand.

"Well for those of you who might not be aware, there was an injunction passed against the bathroom protection bill by the Omaha Public schools. So a lot of the teens at the gay and lesbian center in Lincoln have been talking about gender stereotyping and the freedom to express yourself. So I would like for you to journal ..." Bucky leaned back to try and see the clock in the hall. "Journal for about 15 minutes about gender and your feelings about it. Times you might have felt like people judged you for your gender presentation. Or where you didn't fit in, and how it made you feel." 

"Are we going to have to share what we wrote?" Joanna asked.

"Only if you're comfortable doing so," Bucky told her.

Erik frowned as everyone started writing, turning to Steve and looking at him. "Are you going to do this too?" 

Steve blinked. "I guess I can."

"I don't wanna do it if you don't."

Bucky was looking at them both from across the way, clearly waiting to see how Steve would respond. Steve gave a small smile. "Sure, pass me a journal."

Bucky slid one across to him and they all worked in companionable quiet. Steve spent a solid few minutes just staring at the blank page. He looked over at Erik, who was looking back at him. Olive was writing furiously in her journal across the way, big broad slashes across the page, and honestly it was a bit intimidating. Steve hadn't ever had many issues with his gender. So he wasn't sure what to write. How could his experience possibly compare to something like what Theo might be going through?

After a few minutes though, memories started coming back to him of being young. How small and skinny he had been, and how he had been treated. In college he had sprouted up, growing taller and more muscular. But what if he had always stayed skinny? Unbidden a memory from his childhood swam up, his grandfather's frowning face as terrifying today as it had been back then.

At the end of the time, he was writing furiously as he realized that sometimes he used his bulk and outwardly "straight seeming" appearance as a shield against prejudice. Because he was so big and fit now, and because he was white and blonde, he used that to avoid speculations about his sexual orientation. He let people draw their own assumptions, of course, but his looks really did play into them assuming a certain type of thing about him - in this case that was heterosexual.

But what if he had stayed small and skinny? How would his life be different? Would people treat him differently? 

"Alright, time!" 

Steve looked up, the real world slowly coming back into focus. He was surprised at how much the exercise had effected him. He felt like he was coming out of a fog or a daze.

"So, how was that?" Bucky smiled, and Steve looked at him. He had never corrected Bucky's assumption of his heterosexuality he realized. "Would anyone like to talk about what they put down in their journal?"

Olive raised her hand.

"When I was young, I never realized I was going to..." she stopped. Bucky nodded at her encouragingly and she continued. "My mom was always pushing things on me that I didn't want," she began again. "She wanted me to wear all these itchy dresses with lace and pink underpants. She wanted to press my curls flat with this horrible hot iron and oil. And the older I got, the more she pushed it on me. Now daily it's all 'don't you want to be pretty? don't you want boys to be interested in you?' I don't get why they can't be interested in who I am. Why do I have to act stupid and girly to get them to notice me?"

"Where do you think your mother's gender expectations came from?" Bucky asked her.

"Probably from her mom."

"My parents are like that too," Theo added. "They support me sometimes, but I had a cousin's wedding this past summer and we had to travel to see our family in the Philippines. And it was like... they didn't want any of them to know. They wanted me to wear clothing that would fit my birth gender. And they kept calling me by my birth name. It's like over here it's one thing, but back with their parents they don't want anyone to know."

"How..." Joanna's tremulous voice came out of her, and Steve could see what looked like tears. "How did you deal with that?" she asked, gulping.

"Not so great," Theo replied. "I mean, I could have handled it better. I always tell myself to not take it personal. They were raised a certain way, and that's just... they think they know what will make me happy. How I can have a good life. But their life isn't my life. I have to live my life as me, not them."

The rest of the conversation that evening was much the same. Steve was impressed with the stories that the teens shared. Their bravery was incredible for teens. It had taken him so long to come out as gay to his mother. It was difficult to him to even imagine how hard it would be to come out as transgender or gender queer. At the end, it was only Joanna and Erik who passed on sharing their journal entries. 

But the conversation was vigorous and the meeting time passed quickly. Before long it was time to clean up. Steve lingered in the room, not wanting the night to be over. The teens had left, but he and Bucky were still there. He felt like they both wanted to say something, but neither one of them wanted to jump first. So they just circled each other awkwardly, not saying much, just looking.

"I'm uh... I'm going to take this garbage outside," he said to Bucky finally, when there was nothing left to clean. "You probably have to be getting back to your niece."

"Yeah, I should. She's a great girl you know. I just..."

"What?"

Bucky shook his head. "It's nothing." But Steve sensed trouble. He could tell now when Bucky was putting on a fake front, and it worried him. "It was good to see you Steve."

"Yeah, good to see you too."

Bucky passed by him on his way out of the meeting room door. They were bare inches apart, and Bucky's shoulder brushed past his, just barely touching him. Steve shuddered, feeling way too much just from that brief contact. He couldn't help but stare at Bucky as he walked down the hall.

He wanted so badly to give Bucky his phone number, but he didn't want to be a nuisance. God knew the man already had enough going on, trying to take care of his niece and keep his life together. He didn't want to be a drain, calling him up and... what would he even say? It was stupid.

He aggressively hoisted the garbage down the hall, taking it down a back hall, and out to the dumpster. He threw it in with a loud clang, cursing himself. He really should try to get his shit together and move back to New York, what was he even doing here? 

He walked back in through the front, ready to start the nightly ritual of shoo'ing patrons out the door because it was nearly closing time.

But he stopped when he saw Erik sitting on a bench in the outer vestibule. He looked lonely, sitting there in the almost dark next to the bulletin with community fliers. "Hey," Steve said.

Erik's head popped up. "Hey," he said. Steve had clearly startled him, and he seemed as if he had been deep in thought.

"You doing okay?" he asked, sitting down next to the teen.

"Yeah." The boy stared down at his feet.

"You didn't share your journal entry."

Erik shrugged. "You didn't share yours either."

"Touche."

"What'd you write about anyway? You're like a legitimate He-Man."

"I wasn't always."

Erik's gaze was curious, and Steve sighed, realizing he's going to have to tell the story now. "I was a pretty sick kid, so I never grew really. Most people when they saw me as a kid, they thought I was a girl because I was so small. And with the blond hair and pink cheeks well.."

"Really, you?"

"Yeah," he laughed. "My mom thought it was kind of funny, and I didn't know any better. I thought it was just... I don't know. So up until I was seven or so I wore dresses and girl's clothes along with boy's clothes. Just whatever I felt like on that particular day. I had this one pink and yellow sweater I really loved. Surprisingly the kid's at school didn't say much, so it was just sort of normal for me. And..." Steve paused, not sure he should share something so personal with a teen. But he finished the story anyway. "And I had never really known my grandparents. They didn't really like my dad, so I didn't see them much as a baby. And when he passed away, and my mother never remarried, I think they kind of gave up on her. But when my grandmother died, we went for her funeral. And in all the confusion, my mother let me pack my own suitcase..."

Erik laughed, and Steve grimaced. "You can probably see where this is going. I packed a dress. My grandfather was furious. And him and my mother never spoke again. I think.. I think somehow I blamed myself. When I grew up, I got taller, I put on more muscle. And sometimes I think I use that... uh..."

The teen was staring at him. Steve sighed. "I don't know if I should tell you this or not Erik, because you could probably make things difficult for me. It's not something I hide. But I don't talk about it either. Erik, the reason I'm helping with the Gay Straight Alliance is because I'm gay myself."

Erik's mouth fell open. It would have been comical if Steve wasn't afraid that he was about to run home and tell his parents and somehow get him fired. "You? You're gay?"

Steve nodded. "I hope this doesn't change how you feel about me. I think you're a great kid, Erik. And if... if you ever need someone to talk to, really I'm here. Anytime."

The teen didn't say anything in response, he had been staring at Steve but his gaze whipped away as he stood up. "I uh... I have to go." He started walking out the door, pausing to look back. "Thanks uh... thank you for telling me your story."

"Thanks for coming to the group. Hopefully we'll see you at the next one."

And then Erik was gone, and Steve was sitting alone. He wasn't sure what would happen now. He had never told one of the teens about his orientation before. It was somehow liberating and terrifying all at the same time. He wondered if by letting people make their own assumptions he had somehow been hiding himself or if it was just smart to not be vulnerable in front of strangers. The line would probably never be clear. 

That night when he went home, even though it had a been a long and arduous day, he pulled out a canvass. Sitting in front of it, he sketched roughly in pencil and then in oils a self portrait - himself as he was, staring in a mirror at himself as he had been or might have been - skinny, effeminate, raw and exposed, and naked from the chest up. He worked long into the night and when the morning sun arose he stared at a mostly-finished painting. He wasn't sure what it meant, but it was probably the most interesting thing he had created since he had left New York.

After a few hours of sleep, he was at work again. Surprisingly, he didn't feel tired.

 


	6. Ladybug Girl Rides Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Bucky Barnes has to figure out how to navigate preschool and Halloween costumes. And maybe seeks assistance from a certain Scarlet Witch and her good friend Sharon. Also Fred and Bucky visit Rebecca's grave. *Bucky's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beautiful orange roses:  
> https://www.ftdimg.com/pics/products/VROR_200x225.jpg
> 
> Ladybug Girl can do anything: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/PenguinEMS2010/LARGE1_9780448453736_LBG_LadybugGirlDressesUp_txt6._V216374233_.jpg

"Alright, are we ready to do this?"

Bucky and Fred stood in the front schoolyard staring at Fred's new preschool through the fence that enclosed the playground. Everywhere there were kids running, screaming, and yelling. Most of the kids were small Bucky noted with relief. Hopefully he wouldn't have to worry about bullies until Fred had to make the transition to the public elementary school. 

He bent down until he was her height. She had never looked so small or vulnerable to him as she did in that moment. "You're going to have a great time here," he told her. "And you'll really like Ms. Peggy. She's very nice, and she's going to take good care of you."

Fred didn't say anything, but she held out her hand. He took it and together they walked into the school.

They stopped by the front office to sign in and found her classroom with minimal difficulty. Bucky had brought her early so they had time to locate her cubby hole, which already had her name on it. They started putting her supplies away, each one with her name written on it in black sharpie. She had special art supplies, markers, crayons, and paintbrushes. An extra set of clothes, a lunchbox...

Bucky's heart gave a twinge. It was Rebecca who should have been here, not him. He was so sad that she had missed this day.

"Hey," he said, pulling out his phone. "Let's take a picture." 

Fred looked around the mostly-empty classroom uncertainly. "I just thought..." he paused. "Maybe we could take it to the cemetery this weekend and share it with your mommy? We haven't visited her in awhile, and I know that she would have loved to be here."

To his surprise, Fred nodded and stood with a small smile in front of her cubby hole. He took the picture as a voice rang out behind them:

"Good morning!" 

Fred and Bucky looked over as Peggy came into the classroom. She sat a mug of steaming tea and some folders down on her desk. 

"Hey Peggy," Bucky said, taking a moment to wipe a tiny bit of water from the corner of his eye. "How's it going."

"Wonderful," Peggy chirped, tucking a stray hair behind her ear.

Personally Bucky thought no one had a right to look that happy and well-groomed that early in the morning. She had her hair pinned up, and she was wearing a stunning dark red dress that perfectly showed off her ample figure and matched her ruby red lipstick. But when he saw how her smile seemed to perk Fred up, he kicked himself for being a fool. He was just jealous because of how close she was to Steve. 

Peggy came over to them and knelt down in front of Fred. "Good morning," she said, holding out a hand for Fred to shake. "Very nice to meet you Miss..." her voice trailed off and she waited.

"Fred." Fred's voice was soft but clear.

"What a lovely name, darling," Peggy said. "Is it short for something?"

"Winifred," she said.

"Well we are very glad to have you here Miss Winifred. I'm Ms. Peggy, and we're going to have a great time together. Do you want to see where you're going to be sitting? I had a special nameplate made up just for you."

Fred nodded shyly, and Peggy led her over to her desk and chair. After that she introduced her to some of the other students who were filing in. Peggy had one of the other girls showing her the play area when Bucky realized it was time for him to leave. He went over to them, happy to see Fred smiling for once.

"Hey Freddy," he said. "I have to get going. You going to be okay?"

She nodded and held her arms out. He realized she wanted a hug, and he crouched down to hug her, burying his face in her soft hair for a second.

"I'll be back after school okay," he said, sounding gruff like he had a frog in his throat. "See you soon."

He got up and walked out of the classroom, but Peggy's voice stopped him. "Bucky!" she called out down the hallway.

He turned and looked back at her. She was walking towards him, and put a hand on his shoulder when she reached him.

"The first day can be hard, I know," she told him. "But it will get easier. Trust me, this will soon become just another routine in your day."

He nodded. "Thanks," he said. "Everything is just a little crazy right now. Call me if anything comes up."

"We're going to take good care of her," Peggy assured him.

\---

Work that day was interminable. There were no teen programs or outreach events, and he was stuck most of the day at his desk doing paperwork and making phone calls. He watched the clock, urging it to move faster. He was glad that he had asked to be able to leave early for Fred's first day.

He had spoken to his manager about possibly building more flexibility into his schedule, and he had been pleased to find that there were some things that he could do. He had built up a fair nest of vacation time which he was going to use, and it seemed like on certain days he could come earlier and therefore leave earlier if he wanted to. He felt privileged to have that option, but still wondered what he was going to do on nights that he had to work.

Finally the day ended, and he drove quickly over to Fred's school. He felt his heart racing nervously as he wondered how her first day had gone. He had no idea what kind of situation he would be walking into. What if she hadn't enjoyed it? What if she never wanted to go back?

He waited outside pacing until he heard the final bell ring. Almost immediately children started streaming out of the building. But Fred wasn't one of them. He stared and waited at the gate with the other parents who were gathered. After fifteen minutes, he became extremely nervous and went inside the building.

He found Fred at her desk, bent over a piece of paper. He leaned against the doorframe to the classroom, sagging down with relief when he saw she was unhurt and looked content. 

"Welcome back," Peggy said, a laugh in her voice. "As you can see, Fred has been hard at work all day. She's working on coloring in a letter page. She is extremely precise. I think she feels like she's behind the other students, so she's trying to catch up."

"She did okay then?" Bucky looked over at his niece, who had yet to notice his arrival. 

"She did great. Winifred! Your uncle is here." 

At the sound of Peggy's voice, Winifred looked up, her face breaking out into a beautiful smile. Bucky's heart lurched. Esther was right, this was exactly what Fred had needed.

"Bucky!" she said, standing up and running at him. She jumped up into his arms and latched onto him.

"Hey kiddo," he laughed. "Good to see you too! You had a good first day then?"

"It's fun here," she told him, nuzzling her face against his neck. It was a sweet gesture that he typically saw her do with Rebecca, and it was the first time she had done it to him. She pulled back. "I like Ms. Peggy," she said. 

"And the other kids were nice?" he asked.

She nodded, telling him about her other classmates in a running dialogue that was fairly nonsensical but made him happy to hear.

"Winifred, why don't you gather your things? I need to talk to your uncle for a second," Peggy said, coming over. 

"Okay, Ms. Peggy," Fred snapped into action, clearly wanting to please her. 

"Something wrong?" Bucky asked her.

Peggy smiled. "No, not at all. It's just there are only a few weeks to go before Halloween."

Bucky wasn't sure where she was going with this, so he stayed silent.

"I don't know if you know this or not, but it's tradition that students are allowed to wear a costume on Halloween. I just didn't want Winifred to miss out."

 _More like you didn't want her to stand out and seem odd_ , Bucky thought, grateful that she had warned him. "Thank you," he said. "We have some of her things in storage. I'll see what I can find."

\---

The storage locker was cold and dreary. Bucky had Fred in the car with him as he drove up and parked in front of it, leaving her in her car seat up front for a second while he opened the latch and peered inside to assess the situation. There wasn't much room in his apartment, and for the hundredth time he thought to himself that he needed to start looking at houses or at least larger apartments. But then how would Esther help out with Fred? 

There were boxes and boxes piled high, and Bucky wasn't sure quite where to start. When they had been cleaning out Rebecca's house, she had been so sick that nothing had been very organized. And most of what was stored was rapidly becoming musty and moldy smelling.

He sighed, and got back in the car. 

"You ready to visit mommy?" he asked her. 

She nodded, her little red pigtails waving around. He hadn't made much of an effort to learn how to do hairstyles, but that was also on his to-do list.

The cemetery was clean and well-manicured. Bucky parked outside in the small lot up front, and they made the long walk to the plot where Rebecca was buried. They had brought orange-tipped roses with them, because roses had been Rebecca's favorite, and the orange seemed appropriate for the season. It was still somewhat warm for late October and the sun was out, making Bucky sweat a bit as they trudged along.

They didn't talk until they get up to Rebecca's grave stone, which Fred always hugged. She did so today, and Bucky followed suit, running his hands along the top of the slick dark-gray stone. Rebecca Winifred Barnes - 1988 - 2016 - Beloved Mother and Sister - In Our Hearts, Now and Always.

"Afternoon, Bex," he said. "Brought you some flowers."

They laid the flowers down, and Fred told her mother about her first day and her friends at the preschool. They showed her the pictures on Bucky's phone, and Fred went on and on about the classroom and her cubby hole and how wonderful Ms. Peggy was. 

"Do you want to talk to mommy?"

Bucky's mind had been wandering, but his attention snapped back when Fred asked him that question. He looked at her tiny, pretty face. And then he turned and looked at the headstone. He occasionally 'talked' to Rebecca when Fred prompted him, but he often felt silly, like he was talking to nobody.

"Uh, sure," he said. He took a deep breath. "Hey Bex. It's uh... good to talk to you. We missed you a lot this week, with Fred starting school and all."

Fred was still staring at him, as if expecting more. Bucky closed his eyes. He really wished Rebecca was still there for him to talk to. If he was able to pick up the phone and call her today, what would he say to her?  

"I know it's supposed to get easier, missing someone after they're gone. But it hasn't, not really. You were my best friend, Bex. And I miss you everyday. I wish you were still here. You always knew just what to say, what to do. And you made everything look so easy. But things aren't easy. They're so, so hard." He felt tears starting up behind his eyes, and he couldn't help but let them brim over and fall. "And it's every single day. Things just come at you, and you have to deal with them. And that's life, I guess."

He was crying now, and he opened his eyes to find Fred hugging him. He hugged her back. "But there are good things too," he went on, not wanting Fred to feel sad or scared. He had revealed too much already. "But there are good things too. Things like Ms. Peggy and..." he paused, thinking of Steve. "I met somebody else, someone special. I know you always said you wanted that for me. And I don't think he likes me back that way but... I wish he did. Maybe he can just be a good friend. And that will be enough."

Silently, he prayed to Rebecca for help as he brushed his tears away. And for a long while, he and Fred sat and enjoyed the silence of the cemetery.

Afterwards he felt tired and worn out, and they wound up going back to the apartment and taking a nap together, Fred curled up in Bucky's large bed with him. He had meant to go shopping so they could find a Halloween costume, but with everything else, it slipped his mind until two weeks later.

\---

"I'm sorry sir, but Halloween is two days away. We're cleaned out." 

Bucky took a deep breath, trying to not panic. He felt like he was about to lose his shit. He had asked Fred about Halloween, and all she kept saying over and over was "Ladybug Girl." And he had remembered then that pretty much every year Fred dressed up as Ladybug Girl. She was a character in a picture book series that Fred loved, and that Rebecca had always read to her when she was falling asleep. "Ladybug Girl can do anything!" Rebecca would cheer as Fred smiled.

He had been to the storage locker multiple times, and he had left Fred with Esther so that he could dig deep into the locker, opening box after musty box and giving himself crazy allergy attacks and sneezing fits. But all to no avail. Try as he might, he hadn't been able to locate her costume.

Then he had started trying to find costumes at local Halloween stores. He tried store after store, cursing himself for never learning how to sew. But every store was sold out of anything ladybug in Fred's size. As a last resort, he had even tried bringing Fred to one of these stores, having her look around. But she had just kept saying "Ladybug," having an ugly breakdown crying fit when the store manager had told them they were sold out. Bucky had had to take her home after that. He had hoisted her on his shoulder and tried to ignore the stares of concerned strangers who were probably wondering why a big bulky man was dragging a crying four year old around while she screamed "Ladybug" at the top of her voice.

"Is there anything you can do? Could you special order one from the internet site and overnight it? Really, I would pay anything at this point," Bucky said. He leaned across the counter for emphasis. "Anything."

The store clerk nervously looked right and left. She was a short girl with shoulder-length dark hair with streaks of blond, probably seventeen or eighteen by the looks of her. She leaned in closer to him, "I know we don't have that one online anymore. And technically I'm not allowed to recommend a competitor, but..." she looked around, probably searching to see if there was a manager nearby.

"But?" Bucky pressed, desperately hoping there was light at the end of this tunnel.

"But my friend runs this sewing service out of her house, and she has a ton of costumes for babies. She sells them on Etsy and makes a fortune." The girl sighed, "Wish I knew how to sew."

Bucky couldn't have empathized more with that statement.

The girl took a business card out of her back pocket and passed it over surreptitiously like this was the Cold War and she was giving him bomb codes: The Scarlet Witchery, a sewing emporium for all your needs. Wanda Maximoff, 15112 NE 25th St, Bellevue NB. And a 412 phone number.

"Thank you, bless you," he stuttered. "You don't know what this means."

"It's okay, I'm not sure if she'll even have what you're looking for," she told him. "But she might be able to whip something up for you. Wanda is positively magical." The girl lowered her voice and waggled her eyebrows mischievously. "And her brother is something to look at too, if you know what I mean."

\---

Bucky called the number listed on the business card later that day. He had praised the store clerk's helpfulness - her name was Skye- to her manager without giving the details of just how she had helped him. But he wanted to at least let someone know how much he appreciated her help.

The number at the Scarlet Witchery rang and rang, so Bucky sighed and called Esther to tell her he was going to be late. He just hoped he would make it before they closed.

He drove furiously the entire way to Bellevue, cursing himself for waiting so late. It was already 3 PM on a Saturday, and this place wasn't even open on Sunday. And there would be no time to pick something up before school on Monday. Why did he always do this to himself? He couldn't let Fred down. He just couldn't.

He managed to arrive by 4:15, and dashed inside the shop, which looked deserted but it was hard to tell. There were costumes everywhere, blocking the view down the aisles. There were also adorable plush animals that were handmade, purses and bags of all kinds, scarves, hats, gloves, and baby clothes. He maneuvered around a tall rack, peering towards the back. "Hello?" he called out, but there was no reply.

Just how deep down did this store go anyway? He felt like he was in some kind of Hayao Miyazaki movie.

"Hello?" he tried again. "Hello, I was here to see if you had a costume, it's for my niece, I'm desperate!"

When he got towards the back he found a register, but no one there. It was then that he heard giggling. He poked his head around the corner and saw a few changing rooms with drapes drawn across them. "Hello?"

"Oh, hello!" 

A cute girl popped the curtain open a tad, her face peeking out. She had long brown hair and big blue eyes. "Hi there!" she called again. She was pink in the face, like she was drunk or had been laughing too much. Probably the latter, judging from all the giggling that Bucky had heard. "What can I do for you today?"

"I'm uh..." Bucky paused, feeling a bit weird conversing with a woman wearing a curtain like a bridal veil. "I need a costume. For my niece. Desperately. She's uh... four."  
  
"Aw, how cute!" the girl came out from behind the curtain, and Bucky saw that she was wearing a long red dress made in gorgeous velvet with a low cut bustier that laced up the front. "Sorry about my attire, I'm going to a Halloween party on Monday night, and I was trying it out."

"That's gorgeous," Bucky said, really meaning it. "That must have taken a long time to sew."

"It did, but I think it's worth it," the girl held out her hand. "Wanda Maximoff, nice to meet you - "

"I'm Bucky, Bucky Barnes," he shook her hand, wondering just what her brother might look like given how beautiful she was. "And I - "

"Bucky!" The curtain opened all the way, and there was Sharon, Steve's coworker. She was wearing a fitted white suit made of what looked like leather. And white boots that went up past her knees. Her long blond hair reached down her back, curling up at the ends with an effortless twirl.

"Oh, hi Sharon!" he said, feeling a bit queasy. It seemed like Steve was surrounded with gorgeous women. "How's it going?"

"Wonderful!" Sharon told him as she came over and put her arms around Wanda. "Just picking up my costume from the wondrous-Wanda!"

Wanda blushed a bit. "I'm not all that amazing Sharon."

"You are, you really are! This is the best costume I've ever had." Sharon struck a pose like she was a Bond girl holding a gun. "Just call me Agent 13!"

"Secret agent?" Bucky asked, and Sharon nodded emphatically.

"Well, let's get back to your niece," Wanda interrupted. "How old is she?"

"Four," he said. "She's uh..." he should have measured how tall she was, these costumes were custom made. He gestured a few feet up from the floor. "This tall?"

Wanda grinned, hiding her smile behind a hand. "Do you have a picture?"

"Oh yeah." He pulled out his phone and showed her the picture from the preschool. "This is from her first day of school."

"Awwww..."

Bucky wasn't sure how women did that, that in-tune chime, but Wanda and Sharon did it at the same time, looking a the picture of Fred with a dreamy expression on their faces. "She's so cute," Sharon coo'ed.

"And what would she like to be?" Wanda asked.

"A ladybug," he replied. "Well, Ladybug Girl to be more exact, but a ladybug of any kind really - " 

"Oh, I know Ladybug Girl," she said, waving a hand. "I do costumes for birthday parties, and there's a girl in the apartment complex near me who loves her."

"Great, do you... do you have a costume for her?" Bucky tried to not get his hopes up. Just because she had heard of this crazy thing didn't mean that she had anything in stock.

"Hm, let me see what I can do."

With that, Wanda dove into the madness of her store, digging through rack after rack, humming and talking to herself the whole time.

"So, what are you going as for Halloween?" Sharon asked, leaning against the counter. She propped her head up on her hands, looking up at him coyly.

Bucky squirmed under all that scrutiny. It always seemed like Sharon was looking to dissect him like a bug. "No plans really. I haven't dressed up since I was a kid myself."

"Well, never say never," she said, grinning. "Still no special person in your life?"

"Not since... uh three weeks ago, no," he replied. He could hear Wanda doing what sounded like singing, but she still hadn't emerged. He prayed she found something in her store that would work, because he really didn't have any other options.

"Anyone special in your life?" he asked.

She sighed. "No, not really. No one who notices me."

"So you and Steve you aren't ... uh..."

Sharon blinked at him, arms sliding out from underneath herself as she stood up taller. She tilted her head to the side like she was looking at an algebra equation. "Oh my god," she said finally. "Oh my god." Her eyes widened comically.

"Ta-da!" Wanda popped out from behind him, giving Bucky a start. She held aloft a costume with a red tutu, red shirt, and ladybug wings. There were even red and white striped tights.

"Oh thank god," Bucky said, feeling relief hit him as he saw it.

"One more moment!" Wanda said. "The real trick with Ladybug Girl is getting the boots. I couldn't find any out here in a small enough size, but let me see what I have in the back."

"In the back?" he stared around himself. "There's more to this place?"

She smiled mysteriously. "Of course there is." And with that she disappeared in the back, leaving him and Sharon alone again.

He looked at Sharon who was staring at him. "You..." she said. "You think Steve is straight?"

He blinked, feeling the world tilt at a strange angle. "Isn't he?"

She laughed, her whole face crinkling up with delight. She held her stomach as she let out loud guffaws. "Oh my god, I get it now. This is so crazy."

Bucky felt like he had been hit over the head. Why ... Steve wasn't straight? Why hadn't he ever said anything? "But I thought... he dated Peggy."

Sharon was wiping at her eyes as tears came out. "When he was like 10 or 12. He came out when he was like 16 or something." She took a deep breath. "Wow, that was a good laugh. No, Steve is not straight or I would be all over that if you know what I mean."

"Well he never told me otherwise," Bucky said, not sure how he should feel. If Steve wasn't straight he would have told him right? Especially if he was interested in him?  

"I found them!"

Wanda emerged from the back room, triumphantly holding red boots with tiny black dots on them. She plopped them down on the counter. "Trust me, these will make all the difference!"

She rang Bucky up, punching buttons with little flourishes of her hands. She bagged everything up in tissue paper and a beautiful bag, as if it was a present. She even tied it together with a pretty pink bow that he was sure Fred would love. He paid for everything, and picked up the bag. "Thank you," he told her. "Thank you so much for this. Fred is going to love it."

"Say..." Sharon's smile was positively devious. "Are you taking Fred out trick or treating?"

Bucky paused. "I hadn't really thought about it yet."

"Well, it seems a shame to not go out if you're buying a nice costume," she said. "You should drop by this address..." She picked up a post it from the desk and started jotting down an address in Lincoln. "This is Peggy's house, she has a huge Halloween party every year, lots of fun. So many people and lots of kids. Super fun activities too, bobbing for apples..."

"Sharon arranges the activities," Wanda explained. "Every year this party gets bigger."

"The more the merrier, right," Sharon argued. She put the piece of paper into the Ladybug Girl costume bag that Bucky was holding. "I put my phone number too in case you get lost. Seriously, it's so much fun. And Steve will be there." She winked, and Bucky felt himself turning red.

He started edging his way back out of the shop. "Okay... I'll uh," he bumped into a rack, and turned around, almost apologizing before he caught himself. "Thank you," he told Wanda. "Thank you so much for this."

"I'll be at the party too," Wanda said. "I would love to see my costume on her if you drop by. Always good to see your work come to life you know."

"I'll think it over," he told them. "But for right now - thank you. This is great."

He drove home in the falling darkness, trying to figure out how he was supposed to feel now.


	7. The Halloween Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Halloween Party featuring Steve and Bucky angsting after each other, Fred as Ladybug Girl, and Sharon in her element as hostess. Also Sam is ridiculous and dresses up as Redwing, much to the torment of Green Arrow err Clint Barton. *Steve's POV
> 
> PS - Send me comments if you have suggestions for other Avengers who should show up! Next chapter features a very brief scene with some Norse gods you may love/hate (or both!).

Steve twisted to one side and then the other, frowning as he stared at himself in the floor-length mirror. He was pretty sure this costume made him look like an idiot. Or a small child playing dress up in his father's clothes.

"I don't think this is a good idea," he said. "I look..."

"Ravishing? Positively, astoundingly, gloriously handsome?" Sharon asked him, popping up behind him to rub an imaginary speck of dust off of his shoulders. She was already dressed in her Agent 13 costume, and the white suit fit her like a glove.

"Ridiculous." 

"Oh psh!" she waved a hand in the air as if shoo'ing away his concerns. "You look great."

"This isn't what I imagined when you said 'soldier.' I thought you meant like... fatigues and combat boots, maybe a fake gun or something. This is... uh..." He paused, searching for the right words. "This is a lot."

Sharon grinned at him in the mirror, white teeth gleaming like the Cheshire Cat. "Well that wouldn't be nearly as appetizing at this, now would it?"

"I'm sorry, who are we trying to appetize?"

Steve turned to see Peggy walk into the room, already dressed in a WWII WAC uniform. He put on his best hangdog expression in an attempt to win her sympathy. This outfit really wasn't going to work, and he needed an ally. "Tell your cousin that this is a bit much, even for her famous Halloween bash."

Peggy walked around him in a slow circle as she assessed him from multiple angles. They were all getting ready in one of the upstairs bedrooms in her house, which was so massive it basically qualified as a McMansion. Peggy and her mother didn't make much money, but her father was loaded.

To make a long story short, Peggy's mother had met her father while doing study abroad at King's College in Cambridge. And Peggy and her older brother Michael had been the result of a spectacular five year love affair that had gone south rather quickly when Sheila discovered that he was having an affair. So Michael and Peggy had moved back to the States with their mother after the divorce to be with her mother's family (including Sharon's parents who had basically raised the two girls as sisters rather than cousins).

But her father had stayed in England, and he had showed little interest to no interest in his children. And while Sheila had never wanted anything to do with her ex's money, Peggy had said that using his wealth to buy nice things was the least that he owed her. Thus it was only natural that most parties and shindigs happened at her McMansion in Lincoln.

"I'm sorry Steve," she said, stopping in front of him and shrugging. "But I can't disagree with Sharon. That outfit looks positively smashing on you darling." Her slight twinge of an English accent popped out only when she wanted to ham it up, and she was dishing it out tonight. She had her hair set in soft curls that just brushed the top of the collar of her green WAC uniform, and her lips were painted a perfect dark red. 

"Well I guess I'm outvoted then." He turned and looked at himself in the mirror again. A dark brown dress uniform from WWII stared back at him, perfectly pressed, with tiny ranks and medals hanging from the front. He had skipped last month's haircut, and now his typically spiky hair was longer, slipping onto his face every soft often in an annoying way that made him want to immediately brush it back. He reflexively started to brush it back again, but Sharon smacked him on the arm.

"Stop touching it! You'll ruin the effect."

"Why are you so invested in what I look like tonight?" he asked her suspiciously. Not for the first time he wondered what was going on. Sharon had been weirdly giggly around him lately, and she had insisted that she be the one to pick out his Halloween costume this year. Last year he had come as the Boy Scout kid from the movie Up, and he supposed that had been the last straw for her. Now she was insistent she at least approve (if not pick out) his yearly Halloween costumes. And he had been so busy lately fixing up the house and (miraculously) painting again, that he hadn't wanted to argue with her.

But it was pretty strange that she cared so much about his appearance. He wondered if she was going to try to set him up with Wanda's brother again. Not that Pietro wasn't great, but he just wasn't Steve's type. Not like certain other dark-haired, blued eye men who may or may not live in Lincoln with their niece...   
  
Steve gave himself a mental shake, following Sharon and Peggy down the stairs to help them continue with last-minute preparations for the Halloween party. They typically set everything up, then got dressed up, and finally came back down to get the food ready. There was home made pizza in the oven at the moment, and the smell made Steve's belly rumble with anticipation. There was even home made cider cooking on the stove top, and apples dripping with caramel that had been set out to dry.

He swiped a caramel apple on a stick just as Sam arrived, temporarily distracting Sharon. He took it out to the back yard, knowing he would get yelled at if she saw him eating anything early. Especially anything that could potentially ruin his "look." He munched happily, trying to keep the caramel as far away from himself as possible while doing so, which was pretty much impossible. 

The sun was already starting to go down, turning the sky and trees a golden-orange color. It was a beautiful day, and Steve felt a kind of peace rise up from within himself. This couldn't be further from the life he had pictured himself living when he was a college student in New York. He had always thought he wanted to be a famous artist, living a life in luxury, painting and creating art that made him famous - but humbly so, of course.

He looked back at the window just in time to see Sam start pulling on some kind of crazy red feather outfit, which became more obvious as a gigantic bird costume when Sam pulled on a ridiculous bird head and started gesturing with the red wings hanging from arms. Watching Sharon nearly cry with laughter as Sam "flew" at her, enveloping her and tickling her with his wings, Steve started to think life in Nebraska might be just as spectacular as anything happening in New York.

Their laughter rang out of the still open windows and down the street. He popped the last of the apple into his mouth and threw the stick into the garbage bin on the side of the house. 

"Steve, where are you man?" Sam yelled out, opening the back of the house. "You have to see my - Holy shit! That is some costume." He whistled like a cat call, "Woot-woo."

Steve glared at him. "It was Sharon's idea."

Sam grinned widely. "I bet."

"She's not trying to set me up with Pietro again, is she?"

"Now why would she go and do a thing like that?"

"Sam! We talked about this... I'm just... I'm not..." 

The other man put an arm around his shoulders, a few feathers falling off and dropping tiny red tufts onto Steve's previously spotless uniform. "Don't worry about it man, I'm just teasing you. No set ups with Pietro tonight, I promise." 

Steve sighed, feeling relieved. "Thank god."

"Hey people!" The screen on the kitchen window went up, and Sharon poked her head out. "The pizza's ready! Better get in here before Barton eats it all."

"Hey!" An indignant voice rang out from inside the house, and Steve and Sam both grinned. 

Sam cupped his hands around his mouth. "Bahr-tohne!" He yelled. 

They both went inside of the house, where Clint was shoving pizza in his mouth. Sam and Clint exchanged a massive, back slapping hug, and Steve tried to be even more ridiculous, clapping Clint so hard on the back he nearly choked. "Easy, easy!" Clint joked, "I haven't seen you guys in years and this is how you treat me upon my glorious return?" He was wearing some sort of green hood and bow and arrow get up that Steve assumed was Robin Hood, but he wasn't positive. 

"Glorious return my ah-"

Sam's retort was cut short by Sharon ducking her head in the kitchen and glaring at him. "There are children here tonight, Sam, try to remember," she told him sternly before disappearing again. 

"How does she even do it?" Sam asked. "It's like she knows what I'm going to say before I say it." 

"What are you supposed to be anyway?" Clint asked. He hoisted himself up to sit on the counter top, grabbing another piece of pizza. Steve knew that they would all catch hell if Peggy caught him sitting on her counter tops, but he just grinned and snagged some pizza for himself, leaning next to Clint. 

"I'm..." Sam grabbed the bird head that he had left on the table and put it on. The fake eyes stared wildly at them. "Redwing!" He punched a fist up, red feathers dusting the floor.

"Redwing?" Clint asked, deadpan. He lowered the sunglasses that he was, ridiculously, wearing inside at dusk, to stare at Sam. 

"Yeah!" Sam did a little ta-da dance. "I'm a superhero. I fight for truth, justice - " 

"And the chicken fried way?" Steve threw in.

"You're just jealous cuz all of this," he gestured at his red-bird bodied self. "Is going to get wayyy more action tonight than either of you!"

Clint snorted, and Steve shook his head. "No more ridiculous contests, Sam," Steve said.

"Why, you afraid you're gonna lose?" The bird head tilted as if confused.

"I can't even talk to you when you're in that thing," Steve replied. "It's just too weird."

"I'll take your bet," Clint interrupted. He jumped down from the counter top, wiping his hands together. He held his right hand out. "Bet you I get further than you do tonight with... somebody. Guy, girl, ghost, goblin, does not matter. I do not discriminate."

Sam shook his hand. "Just like old times then... Green Arrow?"

"Green Arrow?" Clint's voice was indignant. "I'm Robin Hood! It's a classic!"

"It's a green hood and a bow. You're the Green Arrow."

"I'm not from some crappy tv show!"

Steve groaned. "Well I want no part of this devil deal."

The bird mask waggled back and forth. "Don't think you can take us out?"

Clint raised an eyebrow.

He glared at the two of them. "No, we just aren't seventeen anymore!"

"Come on man," Clint wheedled. "For old times?"

He held out his hand, and Steve rolled his eyes. "If I shake, will you stop harassing me?"

"Suuure." Steve reached out a hand, but Clint moved his back a fraction. "You have to try, okay?"

Steve resisted the urge to roll his eyes again. "Yeah, suuure." They shook hands and Sam put his feathery-bird-hand on top of theirs. 

"Steve, I need help with the apple bobbing!" Sharon reappeared in a dramatic flurry of activity, her cheeks red with excitement. "What are you guys, the Three Musketeers?" 

"There are kids here?" Steve asked, incredulous. "Already?"

"Yep!" she rubbed her hands together with delight. "Happy trick or treat!" She frowned as she caught sight of his uniform. "Are those bird feathers on your costume!"

\---

"I can't get any of these apples man! This game is rigged!" 

The twelve year old boy kicked the side of the tub, water sloshing over. He was dressed as something called Super Diaper Baby from Captain Underpants, and Steve thought he was definitely acting the part. 

"It's not rigged," he told the kid. "You just have to practice a bit before you get it right."

"You do it then if it's so easy!" The kid protested. The three other tween boys with him all joined in with his complaints creating a deafening and totally obnoxious chorus. Steve looked over his shoulder to try to get Sharon's attention, but she was rounding up kids for the Haunted Walk, which mostly just went through the woods in the back yard and dead ended at the house with the party. Pretty much all of the kids who had shown up were already done with bobbing for apples, but of course he got stuck with the (pardon the pun) bad apples of the bunch. 

He shuddered at the thought of what Sharon would do to him if she saw him get water on his uniform or hair, then shuddered again when he thought of how cold the water in the tub probably was at this point. He sighed, resolved to do it quickly. 

He knelt on the towel at the edge of the tub, thrust his face under, and grabbed at an apple. The trick was to go down a bit deeper than you thought you needed to and really make an effort before your face got too frozen and you had to come up for air. Like most things in life, it was all about effort and willpower, and he had that in spades, didn't he? He was dressed as a World War II soldier, and he was going to show these kids a thing or two - 

Ha! He got one, triumphantly throwing his head back and shaking his face off for a second before opening his eyes. He opened his eyes to see Bucky Barnes staring at him, holding the hand of a little girl dressed as what was presumably a ladybug. He opened his mouth and the apple fell out, splashing freezing cold water all over his front.

"Sh- shoot!" He caught himself just in time, rising up and brushing his hair back. The fringes of it had fallen in the water somehow, and water droplets went flying. everywhere. "And that... uh..." He leaned down, grabbed the towel that he had knelt on, and brushed off his face. "That's how you bob for apples kids!"

Super Diaper Baby glowered at him, clearly not impressed. "I still say it's a trick!" 

"Or treat!" Steve said, vaguely panicking. He had no idea that Bucky would be here. And he was... he was staring at him open mouthed, like he was horrified. Steve felt his face start to turn red. "And you know what else is a real treat? The Haunted Walk in the backyard. If your courage stays strong and you finish it, you get treats at the end in the house! Real caramel apples!"

"The Haunted Walk is for babies!" Super Diaper Baby complained. "It's all just fake rubber things and strobe lights."

"Well if you don't finish it soon you don't get treats," Steve said, trying to get rid of him and his small gang of friends. "So hurry up before the other kids get everything!" 

That seemed to work and the small group was off in a shot with Super Diaper Baby in the lead with the Joker, Diddy Kong, and some sort of ninja in tow.

"So uh..." Steve turned back to Bucky and the little girl. "This is pretty awkward."

"Yeah, uh..." Bucky blinked, seeming to come back to himself from far away. "Sharon invited me."

"Oh really?" Steve's eyes narrowed. Damn Sharon. 

"Yeah, I went by her friend's place last week for a costume for Fred."

"Oh, you mean Wanda." Steve looked down at Fred, who looked up at him with guarded eyes. She took a subtle step closer to Bucky's legs. Steve smiled at her, not wanting to appear frightening. He knew sometimes that his height made children afraid of him. "How's it going?" He asked her. He crouched down a little so he was more on her level. "That's a very pretty costume you're wearing. Are you a ladybug?"

She stuck her chin out. "Ladybug Girl!" she said loudly.

"Ladybug Girl," Steve laughed. "Very nice." He looked towards the bushes where the other children had disappeared. "Do you think you're brave enough for some Halloween activities Ladybug Girl?" 

She didn't respond, just looked up at Bucky. "How scary is it?" he asked when Fred didn't say anything.

Steve laughed. "Pretty hokey actually. We mostly pretend to be scared for Sharon. Just a bit of fun for the neighborhood kids and the parents who come to the party. It's the quickest way back to the house though..." He pointed back towards the house and turned to look at Bucky. "This is the back yard though, how did you - " 

Bucky flushed. "Think I got a bit lost actually," he said. "That's why we're so late. I was driving around trying to figure out where I was, and then I couldn't find a parking spot when we got here. We just saw some lights and figured this must be the place... then we saw you uh..." Was it Steve's imagination or did his blush get darker?

"Saw me making a fool of myself?" Steve asked.

"Something like that." Bucky looked down at Fred. "What do you say Freddy, we good to face this Haunted Walk thing?"

"Like make believe?" she asked him. Her eyes, so guarded while looking at Steve, were now so open and vulnerable that Steve's heart did a double take. She clearly trusted Bucky, and Steve could easily see why Rebecca had chosen him to raise her daughter.

Bucky nodded. "Just like make believe. It's all fake. Just rubber and paper and tape."

Fred returned the nod, reaching out a hand for Bucky to clasp. They started towards the Haunted Walk, and Fred's face still looked a bit spooked, so Steve added, "You know what I do when I see something scary?" 

The little girl looked at him just as curiously as Bucky did. "I laugh," he said. He gave a big hearty fake laugh, "Ha!" He pointed at a nearby cluster of trees. "See these dark trees. Ha!" He blushed a bit, feeling like an ass. What would laughter do? He was just making a fool of himself.

"Ha!" He looked down, and Fred was pointing. She laughed again just like that, "Ha!" Then she giggled, putting her hand on her mouth.

"You're both crazy," Bucky said, shaking his head.

"Fake ghost coming up," Steve warned them. As they passed the first bend a ghost whipped down from the top of a tree and sailed over their heads. Steve ducked at the last second, realizing that it was coming right at him.

"Wow, thought I was going to get to see you taken out for a second there," Bucky joked.

"Yeah well you weren't the only one - Bats!" Fake bats in a tree whirled around as Fred started to go "Ha! Ha! Ha!" at the top of her voice. She did a little dance, no longer holding Bucky's hand. She ran up to the bats, "HA!" and turned and looked at them as if waiting for them to do it too.

Bucky glared at Steve. "What a lovely new trick you've taught her."

Fred started to run a bit ahead, and a mannequin hopped out of a coffin at her. She screamed, running back and jumping into Bucky's arms. "You okay?" he asked her.

Steve was terrified, imagining the worst. She would be traumatized, Bucky would have to leave, why had he taken them in here, she was clearly too young, and after everything she had been through in the last few months - 

"HA!" Fred pointed at the mannequin from her perch in Bucky's arm. She looked at him, and Bucky sighed. "Ha!" He joined in, pointing.

Steve realized they were both looking at him, waiting. He grinned. "Ha!" he pointed at the mannequin too, feeling giddy with relief. "Ha!" 

The rest of the Haunted Walk, the three of them chorused "Ha!" like idiots, pointing at scuttling rats, climbing spiders, and the threatening faces jack o lanterns. The last part took them through a fake graveyard, complete with dry-ice fog and mist, which Bucky joked reminded him of Thriller. 

They finally made it back to the house, making their way through the back door into the kitchen again, where the party was in full swing. The kitchen was packed with people in costumes, none of whom Steve recognized. "Would you guys like some pizza? Or hot apple cider?" Steve offered.

"We actually ate before we left the apartment," Bucky said, looking around as if he was a bit overwhelmed by all the people. He probably hadn't imagined something this chaotic, no matter what Sharon had said when she invited him.  

"Probably a good plan," Steve joked. "It's best to come early, tends to get a bit - " 

"Redwing to the rescue!!" Sam ran by the doorway, wearing his full bird costume complete with the head, flapping his wings as he ran by.

"Crazy later on." Steve finished lamely.

Fred started laughing, pointing at the doorway where Sam had run by. "Bird man!" she laughed. "Bird man!" She tugged on Bucky's pants. "Can we go see the bird man?"

Bucky frowned. 

"I know him actually," Steve hurried to reassure him. "He's not as uh... weird as he looks right now. You met him before actually, at the Preschool Fair. He's Sam, remember? He actually works for law enforcement so he's had a background check and everything. He's probably dancing around in the living room trying to..." He looked at Fred, realizing he would have to clean up his language for a bit. "Trying to make new friends."

"New friends eh?" Bucky grinned. "What do you say to some dancing, Fred-o?"

"I like to dance," Fred said, twirling. "Mommy and I danced lots." 

There was a brief flicker of sadness on Bucky's face before it disappeared. "Let's go dancing then!" He grabbed Fred's hand, twirling her around a bit as she giggled. "Lead the way soldier," he told Steve with a wink so quick he almost missed it.

\---

The dance floor was actually not as wild as Steve had imagined it might be. 'Redwing' was leading the neighborhood kids in some line dances, including the Chicken Dance and the Electric Slide. Fred followed along with his antics with delight, all the kids and parents laughing as Sam gestured wildly with his bird wings. Peggy passed by briefly, touching Steve on the arm. "Remember to breath," she said. "And invite them over again for Thanksgiving if you like. They seem like they might need a place to belong." 

Steve wasn't quite sure what to make of that, but he watched as Peggy was swallowed up in the crowd again. Bucky helped Fred for a few minutes, but eventually she started shoving him away to where all the other parents were standing on the sidelines. "Don't need help," is the last thing she said before Bucky rejoined Steve.

"She's doing great," Steve said, grinning at Bucky. "So uh, back to the part of me not knowing you would be here."

"Yeah, Sharon invited me," Bucky replied. Steve wasn't sure, but it seemed like Bucky was acting differently somehow than he had before. He wondered just what else Sharon had told him while she was busy inviting him to their yearly Halloween party.

"Wanda runs one heck of a shop," he said, trying to get Bucky to talk more. He seemed mostly fixated on Fred, watching her dance with the other kids as if he was memorizing dance moves. 

"She definitely does." 

"Did I do something wrong?" 

Bucky finally looked back at him, and Steve was surprised to see anger there. "What..." Steve stumbled over his words. "What did I do?"

Bucky sighed, leaning back against the wall. "I don't know if we should talk about it here. It's... stupid." He frowned. "Sort of."

"Was it something that I said at the GSA meeting?" Steve has no idea what Bucky could possibly be angry about. 

"It's more about what you didn't say." Bucky looked away again, refocusing on Fred.

"What I didn't..." Suddenly things clicked into place. "Sharon told you that I'm gay." 

Cold blue eyes fixed him with a piercing gaze. "Are you?"

"Am I what?" Steve wasn't sure what difference it could make. Bucky was gay so why would he be mad if Steve was too? It didn't make any sense.

"Are you gay?" Bucky's eyes were fixed on him now, and the intensity of the stare was a bit unsettling.

Steve shifted as if he was trying to get comfortable which was ridiculous because they were leaning against a wall. "Yeah. What difference does it make if I'm gay? Aren't you?"

"Yeah, but..." Bucky seemed lost for words, staring at Steve.

"What?"

"Do you really not know what this is about?"

Steve just stared at him. 

Bucky sighed. "Yeah, I am gay, but it's not like I try to hide it."

"Hide it?" Steve was flabbergasted, his mouth hanging open. "Who's hiding what now?"

"We met because I was helping you facilitate a Gay Straight Alliance meeting, and we've had two full meetings during which time you never said one word about your own sexuality! And I saw you at the Preschool Fair, and you and Sheila were talking about your relationship with Peggy as if - "

"Former relationship," Steve put in firmly. "And you said that no one was going to be forced to share anything they didn't want to at those meetings." 

"My point," Bucky said, "Is that you could have easily told me. I'm out, I don't hide it."

"I'm not hiding!" Steve shot back. "Everyone knows about me, everyone who matters at least. And if someone asks me, I don't deny it! Isn't that enough? What more do people want? Should I wave a rainbow flag everywhere I go and shout it out? Do I owe that to the world?"

"No, but you should consider what letting people draw their own assumptions does, what the consequences are." Steve opened his mouth to speak, but Bucky held up a hand. "No seriously, I work for the gay and lesbian center, this is my life. And while I wouldn't ever want for someone to come out in an unsafe environment, especially a young person, it just seems like... You could be in a position to lead. To help the teens at your library. To show... to truly show your community what a valuable contribution you're making. By not telling people you let them make the default assumption. And sadly in this day and age, the default assumption is straight. And by not coming out, not telling people, you let people go on making that assumption. It just makes it easier you know, when people are deciding to pass anti-gay legislation, to vote against gay families, when no one knows who we are. I'm not going to tell you what to do, Steve. And I shouldn't. Everyone has to decide for themselves how 'out' they want to be. But you could have told me."

Bucky fell silent, looking down at his feet. "I'm just hurt I guess," he finished finally. "Sorry for yelling at you. I didn't mean to get on my high horse, however you choose to live is fine. I know not everyone can be as open as I am. It's a privilege, and I shouldn't take it for granted."

"No," Steve shook his head. "Don't be sorry. At our last meeting, I started thinking... I was thinking about how I was living. And what I might be hiding. I was sort of sickly as a child... this is a long story. But I was sick a lot as a kid, and very small, so a lot of people thought I was a girl. And later on I grew up and got bigger and..." He realized he was rambling, and shut his mouth. He tried to get his thoughts in order. "I just started thinking a lot about how different my life might have been if that hadn't happened. If I was still small. How people would treat me. And I realized that I have been hiding myself a bit. I never know how much to share and who's a safe person to talk to." He looked up at Bucky again, feeling like they were totally alone as the party faded away. "I should have trusted you. I'm sorry. I mean, this is Nebraska. It's not exactly New York City."

A long sigh escaped Bucky's lips as he sagged against the wall. "Well maybe you ought to give Nebraska a real shot before totally dismissing us," he said.

He looked over at Steve, and Steve imagined for a moment that Bucky was talking about way more than giving Nebraska a shot. Was he talking about them?

"Caw! Caw! Caw! Redwing to the Rescue!" Sam ran up to them, Fred perched on his shoulders as he bounced her around. She was laughing and looked so, so happy that it was almost heartbreaking. Steve couldn't help but love her, and he imagined that everyone who saw her must feel the same. That she was going to have to grow up without a mother was a tragedy. 

Bucky laughed. "Having a good time?" he asked her.

"Birdman is funny," Fred cheered, pulling on the feathers on top of the fake head. 

"Caw! Caw! Caw!"  
  
_I'm going to have to burn this costume,_ Steve thought to himself.  _So he can never, ever wear it again._

"Nice to see you again Bucky," Sam said, extending a sweaty hand. 

Bucky eyed it with suspicion before reluctantly shaking. "You too."

"Love the uh non-costume you're sporting," he added.

Bucky shrugged. "Getting the kid a costume was hard enough. Couldn't figure out something for me this year. Maybe next time around."

"Well, don't let Sharon see you - "

"Let Sharon see you what?" Sharon cocked an eyebrow at him, standing with one hand on her hip. It should have looked stupid, but with her secret agent costume it actually looked pretty badass.

"How do you do that? How do you know when I'm saying something I shouldn't be?" Sam demanded.

She sighed, "I came over because someone stopped dancing and the kids are getting restless. I think it's time for most of them to call it quits anyway." She looked up at Fred. "You getting tired yet sweetie?"

Fred gave a little head shake 'no,' but her eyes were drooping. 

Sharon grinned at Bucky. "She is just too cute. We have some spare rooms upstairs if you want to give her a place to rest so that you and Steve can uh hang out some more." 

Okay, that was definitely innuendo. Steve glared at Sharon, hoping she would disappear again to take care of the party.

"No, I think it's best to just get home."

Steve tried to not feel hurt by Bucky's words, but he still stung from Bucky's comments earlier. Fred protested, but Bucky managed to pry her from where she was clinging to Sam's back. 

"I'll walk you guys back to your car," Steve offered quickly. He didn't want Bucky to leave with that angry conversation lingering in his mind.  

They started the long walk back to the car, going around the Haunted Walk this time. "Hopefully I can find my way back," Bucky joked. 

For all her protesting, Steve could see that Fred was already nodding off. She was riding piggy back on Bucky, her face tilted into his neck.

"I'm sorry," Steve said again, because he couldn't stand the thought of Bucky being angry at him. 

"It's really okay," Bucky replied. Fred started sliding down a bit, and he stopped to hoist her back up. 

"Are you angry at me?" Steve asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

To his relief, Bucky laughed. "No. It's okay. I'm glad we cleared the air."

They trudged silently for a minute, the darkness seeming to swallow them up for a moment. Then they hit a patch of light and pavement. Fred shifted and seemed to wake up for a moment, moaning a bit in her sleep. "Well we found the sidewalk, car should be... aha!" 

Bucky walked up to the car, sliding Fred into the back in a carseat.

"She's almost outgrown this thing now," Bucky said, his words falling out nervously. "Soon she won't need it anymore." 

The latch of the carseat clicked into place. Steve put his arms around himself, feeling cold even through his uniform.

Bucky stood up and shut the car door and then they were left staring awkwardly at each other.

"I uh... I had a good time," Bucky said.

Steve laughed. "A good time? We spent most of it on a Haunted Walk and then arguing while being attacked by a man in a gigantic red bird costume."

"Not really an argument. We were just talking." The other man grinned. "I got to see Redwing." A raised eyebrow. "And you." He laughed. "You're keeping the uniform right?"

"This uniform is ridiculous. It was all Sharon's idea anyway."

"Well Sharon has good taste." Bucky stopped himself short, as if he wanted to say more, and Steve so desperately wanted to hear what those words were.

"She does," Steve said, to fill the silence.

"We should uh we should hang out sometime," Bucky said. "There's a woman in my building, Esther, she watches Fred sometimes. We could... see a movie. Or get coffee. Whatever you want."

Steve's heart gave a lurch. Was he asking him out on a date? He realized then that he hadn't replied, and hurried to agree. "Sure, sure, yeah... that would be great." He smiled. 

Bucky pulled out his phone, and Steve gave him his number. Then Bucky smiled at him, and everything became a blur. He felt hot and dizzy. He watched as Bucky got into his car and pulled away, and he stood there in the freezing cold for a few minutes before he came back to himself.

Bucky wanted to hang out with him? And he wasn't mad? Was this a date? Could he date someone with a kid? How would that even work?

He turned around and started to walk back to the house, nervous thoughts buzzing in his ears. Even through all the worries, he could feel his cheeks heating up and his fingertips felt electric. He told himself they were still just friends, and that he shouldn't expect anything more. After all, they hadn't even kissed. But still he couldn't banish the hope from his mind.

_Someday, maybe..._

_\---_

He walked back into the house to see Sam wearing just the chicken head and the red pants, bare chested, dancing around in the middle of a vortex of people. Wanda had finally arrived and her and Sharon were twirling each other around the dance floor and shoving any men who approached them away. Peggy was nowhere to be seen, but it was possible that she had discreetly snuck off with someone. It seemed like the children's party had ended and...

"Let the adult festivities begin!" Clint put his arm around Steve. "Would you like a beer? Have a beer Stevie. I've had like 12."

He laughed. "Well now that I believe." He took a beer from Clint, watching as 'Redwing' tried to grind up on a woman wearing green makeup and a skin tight suit of some kind.

"You ready to beat our bet?" Clint asked.

Steve groaned.

"And who was that guy you were talking to? Is her your boooyyyfriend?"

It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry guys this is not at all how I expected this chapter to go. I thought there would be more kissing and less yelling, but sometimes Bucky just can't get out of his own damn way. 
> 
> Oh, and this is what Steve's uniform looks like: http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelmovies/images/2/29/Peggy_Carter_and_Steve_Rogers.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20101102090028


	8. The Trickster's Cavern AKA Steve and Bucky Finally Go on a Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky laments his actions at the Halloween party, and has a heart to heart with Esther. Steve and Bucky finally go on a date at the mysterious Trickster's Cavern romantic restaurant. Featuring a tiny glimpse of some fun Norse gods you may know and love (or love to hate). *Bucky's POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Sweetest Day everyone! Hope you all got something sweet to eat today - I had candy apples, cider, and chocolate covered raisins. The Stucky fandom makes my life so beautiful, and I truly appreciate all of you :) 
> 
> Also as a sidenote, Bucky and Steve are wearing the clothes that Sebastian Stan and Chris Evans wore for the Chelsea Handler dinner:  
> http://images.entertainment.ie/images_content/rectangle/620x372/chelseacivilwar.jpg

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._ Bucky banged his head against the hard wood of the kitchen table in Esther's apartment.  _So stupid. Shouldn't have said all those things. Why do I always have to open my big mouth?_ _I should have kept the politics out of it and just kissed him. What the hell was I thinking?_

"Well this explains all of your issues in life my dear." Bucky looked up at Esther and glared at her. But she just grinned at him, clearly undeterred by him scowling at her. "Brain damage," she finished with glee.

She put a plate of pancakes on the table in front of him, which more than made up for the teasing. It was Saturday morning, nearly a full week after Halloween, but Bucky still hadn't called Steve. He couldn't decide what he wanted to say, and he wasn't sure if Steve was upset with him. But if he was upset with him, why would he have given him his number?  

"Breakfast is ready!" she called out, and Fred left her spot in front of the tv to pull up a chair. She clambered on top of it and then sat down, her tiny legs swinging below her. 

"More syrup!" she insisted.

"It'll rot your brain," Esther protested.

Fred made a sad face, looking like a kicked puppy. Esther groaned and poured a bit more syrup on her pancakes, making Fred squeal with delight.

"So how was that Halloween party you went to on Monday? Did you have fun?" Esther's tone was casual, but her smile hinted that she knew more than she was saying. Bucky couldn't figure out how Esther got all of her information, but it was eerie how much she knew about what went on in his life.

He looked at Fred, who was now sticking her hands directly in the pancakes and picking them up to eat them. She was too young to notice what was going on between him and Steve right? Even he couldn't really say what was going on, and he was a grown man (or at least he pretended to be).

He tried to act calm and relaxed as he answered: "Yeah, it was pretty nice. We were invited by Sharon, she works with uh... she works with Steve." 

"He's nice," Fred chimed in helpfully, fist in her mouth as she licked syrup off of herself. She smiled, her face a sticky mess. He would definitely have to put her in the bath tonight. 

Esther waggled her eyebrows at Bucky, the wrinkles in her skin going up and down. It should have been disgusting but was somehow charming instead. "You like Steve huh?" she asked Fred.

Fred put her hand in the pancakes, picking some more pieces up and shoving them towards her mouth. Most of the pieces made it in, but some fell on the floor below her. And also onto her shirt, the table, and the chair... basically everything around her was becoming covered in pancakes and syrup. "He laughed funny," she said. "And he knew the birdman." She swirled her hands around in the syrup on her plate. "He looked like great grandpa." 

"His costume was a uniform from World War II," Bucky hurried to clarify. His stomach was turning over with nerves, but he was still hungry so he tucked into his pancakes with vigor. 

"My late husband fought in the war," Esther said. "I was really too young to remember. We met when I was twenty and he was nearly forty! He said he felt like a cradle robber, but I sure got what I wanted!" 

"All done!" Fred tried to jump down and run over to the little play area Esther had with toys and coloring pages, but Bucky caught her. He took her over to the sink, setting her up on the counter as he washed her face off with a wet rag. She squirmed and wriggled, but he got her as clean as he possibly could before setting her down. She scampered off, and Bucky refilled his coffee mug to avoid looking at Esther who was watching him with a knowing expression.

He sat back down when he couldn't delay it any longer. 

"Well?" she asked.

"Well what?" he replied, knowing full well that he sounded like a child, but he just couldn't help himself.

"Steve sounds nice." Esther picked up her own mug of coffee, blowing on it a bit to cool it down before taking a sip. She stared at him, clearly waiting for him to say something.

"He is." Bucky was determined to give as little away as possible. He and Steve barely knew each other, and there was Fred to consider now when making any decision. He couldn't just casually date or mess around anymore. He didn't want Fred getting attached to someone if they wouldn't be around for a good long while. He tried to squash the tiny voice in the back of his mind that said that maybe he couldn't handle that either. 

"Is he a nice gay man?" She pushed.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact he is. Not that you would ever know it." Bucky mumbled the last bit, and Esther's eyes widened.

"Didn't tell you up front did he?"

"Nope."

There was quiet for a moment. Bucky glanced up to see Esther watching him. Her stare was somewhat disapproving.

"What?"

She took another sip of coffee. "Nothing."

"What do you have to say about it? Why can't I be upset that he didn't tell me? I can't be with someone who isn't out, who doesn't want to share who he is with the world. That's just..." Esther's face was like a sphinx, totally inscrutable yet somehow judgmental. "It's not right!"

"Oh sweetie, you know not everyone can be as out as you are. Maybe he had a good reason for not saying it up front." Bucky made a choking noise. "Or maybe he didn't. Either way it's his own decision. Are you really mad he didn't tell you because you think it's some grand statement about what it means to be a gay man or because you feel personally hurt by it?"

"I'm honestly not sure." Bucky looked into his coffee mug, watching steam rise up and dissipate. He remembered a particularly tough time, when Rebecca had just found out that she was pregnant with Fred and had left home to try and hide it from their mother. She had taken up a job as a waitress, and Bucky had managed to track her down using a mutual friend. He didn't confront her, but he came to the diner pretty much every single morning. Just to let her know that he was still there for her, and that he cared.

She would serve him coffee, and he would sit. A lot of times he had food too, but always there was coffee. He would sit and watch the steam rise, surreptitiously spying on Rebecca while he did so. He watched her day after day behind the tall diner counter as she grew gradually bigger and bigger. Until one day she had come over to his table, heaving her now bulky body down onto the bench across from him. He had reached across the table top to put his hand on top of hers, a small gesture of solidarity. In the end neither one of them had said very much, but that night she had finally come home to tell their parents what was going on.

"You shouldn't shut him out," Esther said, taking him back to the present day. "Even if you feel like he made a mistake in not telling you about his orientation - which was his own personal decision by the way - you shouldn't give him grief for it. A new relationship could be really good for you. Maybe a new job too."

He glared at her. "And what about Fred?" 

Esther reached across the table and put her hand on top of his, just like he had done to Rebecca all of those years ago. "Honey I think you need to figure out who you are before you try to take on anyone else's life." 

\---

The phone line rang and rang as Bucky paced around his apartment with his cell phone pressed up against his ear. He half hoped Steve wouldn't pick up because then he wouldn't have to - 

"Hi, this is Steve." 

Steve's voice was crisp and clear, and it made Bucky's heart ache just to hear it. He leaned his head against the wall in the kitchen, willing himself to stop walking around like a mad man. Fred was upstairs napping after the pancake sugar rush, and Bucky had decided to try and call Steve. He told himself the other man might not even pick up as he tried to stir up enough courage to hit the call button. Who knew that one phone conversation could be so nerve wracking?

"Hello?"

"Uh, hey Steve," Bucky's voice cracked a tiny bit, and he cleared his throat. Why couldn't he talk normally? "It's Bucky." 

"Oh, hi - hey - uh, how's it going?" It sounded like something had just fallen over in the background, but Bucky couldn't be sure. 

"Good, uh, I was just having some pancakes this morning with Esther and uh, it turns out she could watch Fred tonight if..." Bucky's voice trailed off. "I know it's weird, I should have called this past week to talk. It's too late, I didn't give you enough notice, I'm sorry..." He was babbling now, and he couldn't stop himself.

"No, no, it's okay! I'm not working at all this weekend. Tonight is uh tonight is great!"

Bucky frowned as he heard more weird crashing noises in the background and what sounded like demonic hissing: "Is someone there with you? It sounds like you're being attacked." 

"It's Clint actually, this guy I knew in high school, he's super annoying. Yes, you are annoying and you know it. We sort of... we made a bet on Halloween night and we both lost to Sam, so we had to cook him breakfast. Now he's sleeping it off and me and Clint are cleaning dishes, or rather I'm cleaning dishes and Clint is making a mess."

There was another dim crashing noise, and Bucky winced, realizing now that it was dishes that he was hearing. "Are you sure tonight is okay?"

"Tonight is  _wonderful,_ I need to get away from these jackals." 

Bucky smiled, feeling a wave of euphoria wash over him. 

"So just tell me where and when," Steve said, and Bucky's mind suddenly went blank. 

"Uh... I hadn't thought that far ahead." 

Laughter on the other end of the line: "Superb planner, got it."

Bucky smiled into the phone, feeling giddy like he was talking to a high school crush and not another adult, "I'll surprise you."

"But how will I know what to wear?" Steve laughed some more. "Should I wear my little black dress? That obviously gay enough for you?"

He bashed his head a bit against the kitchen wall, cursing his stupidity yet again: "Agh, yeah sorry again about that. I was..." 

"It's okay, I'm just giving you a hard time. Clint, stop it, you're getting water on my phone! This is a new model, I'm not made of money you know!"

Bucky's brain scrambled to think of a place to go, but it still came up blank. "If I give you my apartment address would you meet me here at 6:30 or so? I know some good places in Lincoln, but Bellevue is sort of a huge unknown for me. There's a big parking lot at my building, you can leave your car here and we can go somewhere together."  

"Just don't take me anyplace you took your ex's. That's always awkward." 

Bucky wondered if Steve was always this snarky or if he was just in a weird mood. Maybe this was how he acted once you got to know him better. "Okay I won't take you anywhere I took someone else. Promise." 

"Alright, I'll see you at 6:30." 

"Okay." Bucky was smiling like an idiot now. "See you then." 

"See you."

Bucky wasn't sure if Steve hung up or dropped the phone because there was a loud 'clunk.' He hoped that Steve hadn't dropped it in the sink as he hurried to text him his address. He paced nervously waiting for a response, which came several nail-biting minutes later. 

He just hoped he had something clean to wear. 

\---

"Okay, when I said surprise me... I didn't quite mean like this." 

Bucky frowned up at the sign hovering over the restaurant. _Trickster's Cavern,_ the sign said in glowing green and gold-edged script. It had an semi-demonic image of a crown with two horns coming out of it. "You said to not take you somewhere I've taken someone else." 

Steve made a face at him. "Just how many ex's do you have?"

"I'm not that adventurous really, and I tend to just go to the same places over and over. So this place will be new to both of us."

Steve was still staring at him. He looked utterly adorable in a dark navy sweater with a vaguely vintage feel and jeans that clung to his body in all the right places. Bucky had agonized before settling on a gray shirt with dark jeans and a green jacket. He wanted to look good, but he didn't want to look too anxious. He still wasn't even sure if this really qualified as a date or not. 

"It had really good Yelp reviews okay?" Bucky protested, walking towards the building and forcing Steve to catch up. 

"If it sucks, can we leave?"

"Definitely." 

With that agreed upon, the two of them entered the dimly lit restaurant. They passed through a dark foyer and emerged into what appeared to be a cozy little tavern. It looked like something out the Lord of the Rings, like any second you would turn around and dwarves and hobbits would be singing about the Misty Mountains Cold. The furniture was all heavy wood, and the room was lit by one single roaring fireplace, so there were dark shadows everywhere and it was hard to see into the corners. 

"Trickster's Cavern, welcome, welcome." A girl with dark hair that hung halfway down her back was at the hostess stand. She cracked the gum she was chewing in her mouth, and Bucky winced. Hopefully this place was alright. "Just two tonight?" 

"Yeah, just us," Bucky said, hoping she would wouldn't ask anymore questions.

"Follow me." She gestured for them to follow her back further into the depths of the restaurant. "I'm Darcy by the way. I'm mostly a hostess, but we're short tonight, so I'm taking food orders too."

She sat them next to the fire, which seemed cozy at first but Bucky suspected might get a bit hotter than one would expect. She passed them both menus, which were inscribed with weird looking Norse runes. "Let me know when you wanna order," she said, cracking her gum again. "I'm gonna go check on the back." 

"The back?" Steve asked, watching her go. It seemed like she just disappeared straight into the darkness which was a bit eerie. He turned back to look at Bucky. "Okay, you have to admit this place a bit weird."

Bucky flipped his menu open so that he could hide behind it. "Yeah but the true measure of any place is really the food right?"

Steve snorted and opened his menu. "I see they have something called Honey Mead."

"Nectar of the gods," Bucky read out loud. "Hm." 

"Seems like it would go wonderfully with the 'salted ox tongue,'" Steve said, laughing. 

"Ugh, gross."

The shadows played across Steve's face as he smirked. "So you don't want to order each other's meal then?"

"Who the heck does that?"

"Sometimes people do... you know... on dates." He put his menu flat on the table for a second to smile, and Bucky's heart fluttered. "Is this a date, Bucky?"

Bucky saw Darcy coming back over to their table, and focused on her to give himself a few minutes. He got the feeling that Steve was enjoying him being in the hot seat a little too much.

Darcy grinned at them when she came over and flipped her hair over her shoulder. "So, have you decided what you want to drink?"

"Two honey meads, please," Steve said. Bucky was about to interrupt, but Steve just went on: "And two waters."

"Great choice," Darcy said. "You know Thor makes all the mead in house right?"

"Uh... Thor?" Steve's face was incredulous.

"Yeah," Darcy's face was impassive and clearly unimpressed by their ignorance. "He runs the bar attached to this place."

"There's a bar?" Now Bucky was really confused. He looked over at the darkness that Darcy had called 'the back.'

"Yeah, this place runs the whole street, and there's two entrances, one in back and the other in the front. Although it all depends on how you approach the building really. Hammer of the Gods is Thor's bar, it's all light and gold up there. Honey oak furniture you know. Just people hanging out. This place is more for..." She grinned and cracked her gum again. "Romantic encounters."

Bucky put his face in his hands, totally embarrassed. Darcy laughed, "I'll give you some more time to look over the menu, and I'll bring you those honey meads and waters."

He tentatively peeked a glance at Steve from between his fingers. Even in the darkness he could see that Steve was pink-cheeked with delight. Either that or he was burning up from sitting too close to the fire. "You're loving this," Bucky accused him.

"Sort of," the other man said. "I'll just look at my menu for a few minutes and let you regain your cool, alright? Hm.... Let's see... ooh 'boiled sheep heads,' that sounds about as good as ox tongue. Hm, 'smoked fish' sounds good though. Ooh 'lamb stew with mushrooms and caramelized hazelnuts,' that could be promising. And they have honey marinated apples? Wow. Classy." Bucky took a few deep breaths, flipping his menu open again even though he was pretty sure that Steve was reading him the entire thing verbatim. 

"Are you back with us?" Steve asked, grinning. He really was so very handsome, Bucky thought. It was a mystery why no one had claimed him yet.

"Yeah, I think the Chieftain Soup looks interesting," Bucky said, trying to refocus on the menu rather than on Steve's face.

"Maybe we should just get a tiny bit of everything." 

"Two honey meads!" Darcy put them on the table with a flourish. "I sort of forgot the waters, so good luck with that." She chortled with laughter as she pulled out her writing pad and pencil. "Just kidding, I'll bring 'em in a minute. Do you know what you want?"

Steve looked at Bucky, who ducked back behind his menu. "You go first."

"I would like... uh the lamb stew with mushrooms please. And the cheese platter too." Steve passed her over the menu as she nodded. 

"And for you?" she asked Bucky.

"Chieftain soup," Bucky said as Darcy dutifully jotted it down. "And I want the Viking bread. Seems like it would go good with a cheese platter."

"Aw you're sharing, super cute," Darcy said as she took his menu. Bucky was pretty sure she was being sarcastic, but he was feeling too happy and content to wonder if she was making fun of them.

"I think we're going to get the mead marinated apples for desert later too," Steve told her.

"Great choice!" Darcy wrote the last bit down and tucked her notepad into her apron. 

Bucky watched as she walked away, putting a bill down on another couple's table and stacking some of their plates on top of her serving tray. She was headed towards the back with plates in tow when she suddenly almost collided with a man coming from the other direction. He was incredibly tall and lean, with shoulder length dark hair and high cheekbones. He was wearing a green sweater and dark jeans, and he scowled at Darcy as if her mere existence annoyed him. 

It seemed like the feeling was mutual as Darcy glared back at him with equal ferocity. "Geez Loki, watch where you're going why don't you," Darcy yelled, jumping back and nearly spilling her plates. "Just appearing out of the dark like that is uber creepy."

The man gave a loud groan as if this wasn't the first time Darcy had yelled at him, and he tried to go around her.

"Loki!" A booming voice rang out from the darkness, and nearly every person in the restaurant turned to look. It was just that kind of voice. It commanded respect, loyalty, it commanded you... look at the drama that was clearly unfolding in front of them.

A massive man with the broadest shoulders Bucky had ever seen came from out of the darkness. He had long gold hair that was partially held back by a leather tie, and he was wearing a plain white t-shirt that showed off his bulging muscles. 

"I'm guessing that's Thor," Bucky muttered.

"What do you want Thor?" Loki hissed. The entire place had fallen quiet so his voice was audible even in the farthest corners.

"I would have words with you about the daily accounts, Loki. It seems as if there is money going missing." Thor crossed his arms in front of himself, looking sternly down at Loki.

"And you've found me to blame for it?" Loki glowered at Thor, and it was easy to imagine steam rising from his head. He looked like he wanted to remove Thor's head from his shoulders. "How convenient for you Thor! Why would bother to examine your other wait staff when you have me to look at every time something goes wrong!" 

Darcy looked around the restaurant nervously, noting all the people watching them. "Uhm, guys, you might want to do this in private."

Thor gestured towards a side door, and Loki scoffed at him but followed behind him a moment or two later. The door slammed behind them, and the restaurant was left almost entirely silent except for the cracking sounds coming from the fire. The other restaurant-goers all uneasily looked back at their plates or significant others. A few people laughed nervously as they went back to eating, and gradually the low hum of conversation resumed.

Darcy gave a long-suffering sigh and disappeared into the back again.

"That was some drama," Steve said. He drummed his fingers on the table. "So... brothers or lovers?"

"Huh?" Bucky took a cautious sip of his mead. "Wow, this is incredible!" He stared at the amber liquid in his glass. "Where have you been all my life honey mead?"

Steve leaned closer to him, and Bucky stared at him, temporarily mesmerized. "Loki and Thor. Do you think they're brothers or lovers?"

"That is a super strange question. I think you might be a very disturbed man, Steve Rogers."

Steve drank some of his honey mead, closing his eyes as he did so. "Now that is perfection."

 _Your face is perfection,_ Bucky thought but he wisely kept quiet. 

"Pick a choice before the waitress comes back," Steve continued after he drank some more of his mead.

"What?"

"Brothers or lovers?" His smile was mischievous. "I want to make a wager. Clint and Sam and I always used to make a lot of bets back in the day."

"And that turned out well for you?"

"Quick, make a decision, she's headed back."

"What does the winner get?" Bucky demanded. He wasn't about to agree to something before he knew what it really meant.

"A favor of their choice," Steve said.

Bucky's eyes narrowed. 

"Here are your waters, gentleman." Darcy put their glasses down on the table. "More mead already?"

Bucky decided to jump. If they were picking sides, he was going to go first. "Are those two lovers?"

"Oh you mean Thor and Loki?" She looked back over to the door where the two of them had disappeared. "Brothers actually. Food should be out in a minute."

"Damnit," Bucky seethed. "You set me up."

Steve picked up his glass and swirled the remaining bit of mead around like it was wine before drinking it down in one go. "How could I set you up? I've never been here before."

"So what do you want from me?"

"I'll think it over." 

Bucky flushed, grateful when Darcy reappeared with more mead. He was already feeling light headed, although he couldn't tell if it was the alcohol or the way Steve was looking at him. 

"So how is Fred?"

Bucky was grateful for the diversion, and he told Steve all about how well she was adjusting to her new preschool. It seemed like she making friends pretty easily, and she loved learning about letters. He was thinking about taking her to the library so they could get picture books, and Steve gave him some good recommendations, suggesting he might try to take her to story times on the weekends if Lincoln offered it.  

The food arrived then, and it was beyond delicious. The rest of the night seemed to pass in a blur, and Bucky was glad that he had decided to call an Uber to take them to the restaurant rather than drive himself. The ride back to his apartment seemed like it took forever. Steve kept looking at him coyly and then dropping his gaze, and quite frankly it was driving Bucky crazy. He still wasn't entirely sure if this was a date or not, but he was probably about to find out.

The driver dropped them off, and it was already so cold Bucky found himself shivering even though he was wearing a jacket. "Guess it's almost winter now. I can't believe how fast time is passing. Soon it'll be Christmas."  _Our first Christmas without Rebecca._

"Yeah," Steve said, rubbing his hands over his arms to try to warm up. "Peggy told me to invite you to Thanksgiving. Sometimes we have a big thing. But uh it's just if you want to go."

"I'll think about it." Bucky's stomach flipped over nervously, but the mead gave him courage. "Do you want to come in for a minute? Fred is still with Esther."

He doesn't say, _And she offered to keep her all night,_ even though it's true.

"I should probably get back actually," Steve said.

"Are you sure you're good to drive?"

"I'm alright, I had way more water than you did. And lamb soaks up alcohol way better than that soup you were sipping."

"The soup had lamb in it too! And pork!"

Steve suddenly stepped closer to him, his eyes serious. "Was this a date?"

"You're sure you don't want to come up?"

"Now who's being secretive and hiding." Steve stepped closer to him, and he was invading Bucky's space now. Bucky could smell Steve now, he smelled like clean soap and something woodsy like pine or burning leaves. "You owe me a favor."

"You said you didn't want to - "

"I just want a kiss," Steve laughed. 

Steve reached out and put his hand on Bucky's neck, his thumb brushing against Bucky's ear as he leaned in and pressed their lips together. His lips were wonderfully smooth and soft, and he tasted of something sweet, which was probably the honey mead. Bucky couldn't stop the involuntary moan that escaped his lips as he returned the kiss fervently.

He wound up with his hand fisted in the front of Steve's shirt as he tried to pull him closer, but Steve pulled back, laughing and gasping for air. "I have to go home," he said. "I should go home," he corrected. "It's very late. And you have Fred."

Bucky managed to pull Steve back closer to him, resting his head briefly on the other man's shoulder. The smell of him and his closeness were doing some delicious things to his body, but Steve was probably right. He groaned, shoving Steve back a bit. 

"Fine," he growled out. "If you want to be all proper about it."

"I don't know about that," Steve said. "Come back over here and give me one more for the road."

"Tormentor," Bucky complained, but he leaned back in eagerly for a relatively chaste kiss. 

Steve's hands slid free from Bucky and he walked backwards, towards his car. Bucky put his arms around himself, suddenly feeling just how cold it was out. The wind sliced through his thin coat and nipped at his ears. "You're really sure you're okay to drive?" he called out after Steve, who just gave a cheery wave. "Text me when you're home safe."

"Yes mom," Steve yelled out. He looked back one more time at Bucky. "I'll see you Friday."

 _Oh yeah Friday_. Bucky suddenly realized just how awkward things might get with the Gay Straight Alliance. "Have a nice night," he called out. 

Steve waved as he got in his car and pulled away. 

Later that night, when Bucky had stopped by Esther's to pick up Fred and he was laying in his own bed, his phone buzzed with a message from Steve:

**Got home safe. Had a great time. Next time we got out I'll teach you how to tell the difference between brothers and lovers.**

Bucky blushed in the darkness. He wasn't quite sure what that meant, but it sure sounded like a promise.


End file.
